Porter J. Goss was forced to step down yesterday as CIA director, ending a turbulent 18-month tenure marked by an exodus of some of the agency's top talent and growing White House dissatisfaction with his leadership during a time of war…
"Porter's tenure at the CIA was one of transition, where he's helped this agency become integrated into . . . the intelligence community," Bush said. "That was a tough job, and he's led ably." Bush said he had developed a "very close personal relationship" with Goss, who succeeded George J. Tenet in September 2004.
First of all, what the fuck? Porter helped the Central Intelligence Agency integrate into the intelligence community? What exactly were they in before Porter Goss got there? The gay and lesbian community?
Whatever. As long as Bush felt he led ably and had a great relationship with him.
But senior administration officials said Bush had lost confidence in Goss, 67, almost from the beginning and decided months ago to replace him. In what was described as a difficult meeting in April with Negroponte, Goss was told to prepare to leave by May, according to several officials with knowledge of the conversation.
It boggles the mind that reporters type this shit up.
Bush lost confidence in the guy almost from the beginning, in the summer of 2004, and he waits two years to replace the guy???
I mean, I think that’s okay. That’s fine. A governmental official gets appointed, he doesn’t do a bang up job, after a couple of years, you replace him.
Ordinarily.
But this is the Bush administration which is telling us that the threat of terrorism is so great that the President not only can break the law and spy on Americans, but the President has to! The threat of terrorism is so great that the President and his NSA can’t possibly wait for like a day to get a warrant—hell, the threat is so great, that the President can’t even wait to get a retro-active warrant—to spy on Americans.
Whatever that means.
Not only that, but the looming threat in Iran is so great that the President might have to go to war, rather than bother with actual face to face diplomacy.
These threats are that urgent!
And the fucking guy waits two years to replace the director of the Central Intelligence Agency who, we’re supposed to believe, he lost faith in almost from the beginning???
The exigent circumstances of The War On Terra require that Americans give up their enumerated Rights in the Constitution but yet we’ve got enough cushion that Bush can wait two entire years before replacing the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who he supposedly lost confidence in from the beginning???
And we’re supposed to believe this shit??? Any of it? Which is it? We need martial law to save our lives from the immediate threat of terrorism, or do we have two or three years to mull it over?
What the fuck?
Then, there’s also that little bit of silliness that the Bush administration was well aware that Goss was out in April, but was caught completely surprised by his resignation in May. The Director of the CIA resigned and it took a day for the White House to say why and say who his replacement would be.
Even though they knew about his departure in April.
In a so-called “time of war”. The White House didn’t have a replacement for the Director of the CIA. For a day. Or a reason for his resignation. For a day.
Christ.
You work in an auto parts store, your bookkeeper gives her two weeks notice, and before she walks out the door, you’ve hired a replacement.
The Director of the CIA was leaving—since April, supposedly—and the Bush administration hadn’t announced his replacement.
I don’t believe a word of it. But that’s what we’re supposed to believe.
In a country without a “free press” or a magnificent First Amendment that would ordinarily be called “propaganda”.
But administration officials said Goss never forged a strong relationship with Bush.
And that gibes nicely with the ol’ straight shooter’s statement that he had a very close personal relationship with Goss.
And in case the White House telling you that Bush had a strong relationship with Goss, then saying Goss never had a strong relationship with Bush isn't enough to convince you of how honest and straightforward this adminstration is:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Saturday denied that President Bush had lost confidence in just-resigned CIA Director Porter Goss, saying there was a ''collective agreement'' the agency needed a new leader now.
Christ, no wonder Republicans love Bush! At last we have a Chief Executive whose word we can take as gospel!
Again, just for you Republicans out there who still support this cretin and his insanely incompetent Clown Posse, let's review: It was Bush who said he had confidence in Goss, and the Bush administration who said Bush lost confidence in Goss, and then the Bush administration who denied Bush administration reports that Bush lost confidence in Goss.
There are no Democrats, liberals, communists, terrorists, or faggots involved--if you don't count Scott McClellan...and maybe Porter Goss. And possibly the President.
Aside from that, this is basically a back and forth battle of assertions and heated denials between the Bush administration and the Bush administration.
I've never seen anything like it. In 2002, the Democrats were effectively removed from political debate. Now they've been removed from public debate. All that's left is the White House arguing over what it thinks the rubes are mostly likely to believe.
So you don't need to know about this:
Internally, Goss struggled to articulate a vision for an agency reeling from the intelligence failures of 9/11 and Iraq before the March 2003 invasion, current and former colleagues said…
In Goss's first days in office, his appointment of Michael Kostiw as executive director ended after it became public that Kostiw had been forced to leave the CIA under a cloud 20 years earlier…
Kostiw's replacement, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, is the subject of a review by the CIA's inspector general. The agency is examining whether Foggo arranged for any contracts to be granted to companies associated with Brent R. Wilkes, a contractor and longtime friend of Foggo's who had connections to Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.)
So there's that, too. In the eighteenth paragraph of a story about why the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency suddenly, without warning, without a replacement, resigned, on a Friday, the Washington Post also mentions, that, ahem, he may also be involved in a giant bribery hookerfest.
In case you're one of those people who read eighteen or nineteen paragraphs of every story. That might be true, too. That might be something to consider. It might have something to do with Goss' sudden resignation. Though, if you're like ninety five percent of the population, and you only read the first three paragraphs of any front page story, rest easy, Goss resigned because he couldn't get along with one of his frat brothers from Yale.
That's probably it.
And even if it isn't, the Washington Post and the rest of the liberal Washington press corps are far too professional and concerned with issues of substance to wallow in the tawdry details of the sex lives of government officials.
At least since Bill Clinton left town.
Now, the private sex lives of government officials is something that's beneath the Washington Press corps to salivate and speculate about. Twenty four hours a day. For years.
And just an aside here, from my regularly scheduled rant, why isn't it a fucking national scandal that Negroponte, who co-ordrinated the Reagan era military and financial support of South American dictators who killed, raped, and tortured nuns, priests, Americans, journalists, union organizers, college students, as well as thousands of ordinary people still has a job in our government???
The guy's an international criminal. He's a sociopath and a sadistic, corrupt prick. The only reason he isn't on a high chair in a glass case in the Hague is because he's protected by the might and the money of the United States government, to our eternal shame.
And your liberal Washington press corps never even mentions it.
One of the weakest, but only remaining, justifications for our spending 300 billion dollars on a war of aggression in Iraq is that we intended to remove a dictator who tortured, raped, and murdered the citizens of his country. And, as part of our effort to advance the March of Freedom and insure the Iraqi people never again suffered under the brutality of such a monster, we appointed Negroponte ambassador to Iraq, a guy who worked hand in hand with brutal dictators and death squads in Hondorus and Nicaragua and El Salvador who tortured, raped, and murdered their citizens.
Don't bother going to church on Sunday. Throw out that holy gospel. You want to pray? Pick up a copy of Catch 22. Apparently, Joseph Heller created the world.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I really wanted to talk about is this:
Porter J. Goss was brought into the CIA to quell what the White House viewed as a partisan insurgency against the administration and to re-energize a spy service that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks or accurately assess Iraq's weapons capability.
But as he walked out the glass doors of Langley headquarters yesterday, Goss left behind an agency that current and former intelligence officials say is weaker operationally, with a workforce demoralized by an exodus of senior officers and by uncertainty over its role in fighting terrorism and other intelligence priorities, said current and former intelligence officials...
So what is that, now? A clean sweep? Bush came into the White House with a 230 billion dollar a year surplus, he'll most likely leave with a 400 billion dollar a year deficit. FEMA was the best run federal agency in the country when Bush arrived, it may not even exist when he leaves. The United States military was feared by the world in January 2001, now it can't catch a guy who doesn't know which is the hot end of a rifle. And the CIA is in tatters.
See a pattern here?
Bush is not only the Worst President Ever, he's very nearly wrecked our government from top to bottom. And he did it, amazingly, at a time, when our government was working for Americans better than it had ever done before.
It's incredible. It's not like he was some shmuck who happened to land in the White House during the Great Depression.
No, he got the greatest country in the world, at a time of unparalled proseperity, peace, and economic growth. He got the Presidency at a time of Pax Americana. A time when the good name of a good country was celebrated around the globe.
And he busted it out. He bankrupted us. He fucked up our military. He destroyed our good name--we'll be forever associated with torture and murder and unjustified war. And he wrecked nearly every agency that protects and provides for Americans.
We don't even know. We won't know for years. How disfunctional and fucked up our government is now. But it's a pretty safe bet it's busted.
Again, if the CIA, in a so called "time of war" is in total chaos because of Bush's total lack of leadership--what the fuck do you think is going on with the FDA, and the EPA, and the SEC and all those other organizations where the chaos and failure rarely makes headlines?
Make no mistake about it though--those agencies are totally fucked up, too. And Bush fucking them up can get you and your loved ones killed just as easily as the shit he's fucked up on the front page of the Washington Post.
Dear Ricky,
You are as righto as ever...if I hadn't stopped wondering why the world is what it is, I would think our current administration is an evil joke to demonstrate to the public how idiotic they are by mirroring their own lack of grammar and, ah, need to ah, go to church and be morally bankrupt, and ah, well, I don't know...i'm an evil doer myself, nonetheless, you're rant is as right on as ever....
Posted by: Mary-Minnesota | May 07, 2006 at 01:10 AM
Washington Post should hire you as their liberal blogger. You'd have a greater readership than anyone else on staff.
Posted by: Peacechick Mary | May 07, 2006 at 07:38 AM
Bush is my poster boy for the incompetent who gets ahead by using political tricks. Hopefully at the end of the day we’ll at least get a new colloquialism like “bush player” (or something better) which everyone knows to mean a totally image-focused idiotic machiavellian psycho incompetent who’s good at getting into power and then fucking everything up…
Posted by: fred | May 07, 2006 at 03:20 PM
I know for a fact that Goss was NOT involved in Hookergate. Repugs don't have sex! Everyone knows that.
Hmmmmm... Or maybe it's that they need hookers for sex... I forget. Let me check Wikipedia.
Now, if we can only get proof of the monkey at the parties, we'll be all set.
Posted by: Ellen | May 07, 2006 at 07:02 PM