Porter Goss Resigns?
Just in via NPR news on the radio, Porter Goss has resigned as Director of CIA.
You have to wonder if it involves “poker parties” that Goss “absolutely, positively, unequivalently didn’t attend”…really…honest.
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19 comments
Both the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times have the story as well. And yeah, it’s …difficult not to see this in the light of Hookergate. Still, maybe the next guy will manage to get the CIA back in the business of collecting intelligence, instead of conducting endless job interviews to replace all the covert operatives who resigned rather than let Porter Goss tell them just how he wanted their reports sexed up for White House consumption.
I caught some MSNBC at lunch because it was on at the restaurant.
“Conventional wisdom” [White House talking points]: it has been in the works for weeks, it’s part of Josh Bolten’s restructuring, John Negroponte wanted his own selection in the post, nothing to see here, a Kennedy had a car accident.
The BBC noted that there wasn’t even the “more time with my kids” excuse.
…I am in awe that his profile on wikipedia has already been updated to reflect this sudden departure. There is so much here that just begs for speculation. First, it’s hard to imagine anyone walking away from a safe House seat and seniority for an 18-month stint of driving the agency into the ground. Second, as you mentioned, there isn’t the usual “family time” bromide being tossed around about his departure. And third, people don’t normally give “effectively immediately” notices of resignation from federal jobs unless they have a compelling reason to make it to the county line ahead of the posse. Something appears to be up…
Most people don’t know how much you lose when you exit Federal employment without sufficient notice. He loses all of his accumulated leave and has lost his health insurance. This is not the way things happen.
The only way this could have been handled gracefully would have been to announce that Goss was running for the Florida Senate seat, which would have made sense politically. That didn’t happen, which means Goss has a problem.
Oh wow…
If it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t have any idea of what is going on in the world.
You, Brian Williams, and a quick scan of The NY Times…
CG, do you really want to know what’s going on?
FWIW, Wonkette is betting Goss went down over Hookergate.
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/porter-goss/breaking-porter-goss-played-more-than-cards-171938.php
It has to be something like that, John, they are pushing an impaired Kennedy traffic accident out of the spotlight. This would have happened unless something bad is about to happen.
Yeah, remember the recently departed Domestic Policy Advisor (aka Walmart Refund King)? There was, what? A four-day delay between his resignation and arrest? One thing you have to concede to Bush: He has assembled in one government administration what must be the greated number of out-and-out crooks and criminals since Stalin. Even Nixon would have been astonished.
There does seem to be a certain rush to resign to ensure that the employment blank on the arrest report doesn’t say “Bush Administration”.
Nixon’s people were at least committing their crimes in furtherance of their boss’s agenda. This crowd is free-lancing.
The more I think about this, the more I am sure this whole hookers and poker party story is a Rather/National Guard memo trick to distract away from the real issue of rendition, secret prisons, and torture.
Like in the Dan Rather/60 minutes story, something will end up a fake, resulting in Goss being “vindicated” and then no more will be said about the deeper, more important story of torture.
Opps, I meant to link to the Agonist. They have a comment thread running pointing to some of the pending subpoenas in regards to rendition, secret European prisons and torture and that Goss might actually be tied to that whole mess.
Ok, TPM Muckraker is now also indicating there were other possible problems besides Foggo and the Watergate Hooker scandal. I still think this will ultimately be about the secret prisons, the renditions, and torture.
Goss is tied into all that and more. He was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee before he became director of the CIA. He was one of the handful of people in Congress who was briefed on everything and he controlled one of the few Congressional committees that could have actually investigated what was going on.
With all that going for him, the fact that he resigned suddenly, makes me suspect that the reason is something that can’t be stopped, like a criminal investigation.
The FBI hates the CIA and the feeling is mutual. They step on each other all the time in espionage work, so if the FBI has something on the CIA, they are not going to bury it.
If the Dems win a majority in either house of Congress the “defecation will definitely impact the ventilation” as the investigations start. I think the tip off will be if an intel official from the DoD decides to spend more time with somebody’s children. That will definitely point towards Hookergate.
I hope someone will ask some more detailed questions of this bunch. Like –
1) When asking about the ‘parties’ and ‘hospitality suites’, specify the location. Don’t let someone get away with denying attendance at the Westin. Pin them down.
2) Don’t let anyone get away with denying their presence at poker parties only.
3) Don’t let anyone get away with denying the presence of female hookers.
…and I wish you had “preview” for your comments section!
They orchestrate answers to attempt to lie while technically telling the “truth”. They redefine language in a matter that would have made even Orwell cringe.
I would think that Snow’s first “gaggle” will contain even less content than Scotty’s last one. Without a grand jury I don’t expect anyone will answer questions.
I’ll check on “preview”.
Not that I would always remember to check the preview, but thanks! And thanks for fixing my goofs.
If God is good, there will be gay hookers involved….
Andante, I looked at the code and I’m not sure it was your mistake. Something turned on BOLD and I had to manually turn it off, not the way things should work. You had used bold for words and phrases but it was added for sentences – very weird.
I don’t believe G-d and these people cross paths very often.