The Whore of Babylon

Ray McGovern: Porter Goss as CIA Director?

This is what CIA would get with Porter Goss at the helm. Appointing Goss would administer the coup de grace to intelligence analysts trying to survive while still speaking truth without fear or favor. The only saving grace for them would be the likelihood that they would be spared "multiple visits" by Cheney to the inner sanctum where it used to be possible to produce unvarnished analysis without vice presidents and other policy makers looking over their shoulders to ensure they "had thought of everything." Goss, who has a long history of subservience to Cheney, could be counted upon to play the Cheney/Gingrich/et al. role himself.

That possibility conjures up a painful flashback for those who served as CIA analysts when Richard Nixon was president. Chalk it up to naivete, but they were taken aback when swashbuckling James Schlesinger, who followed Richard Helms as CIA director, announced on arrival, "I am here to see that you guys don't screw Richard Nixon!" To underscore his point, Schlesinger said he would be reporting directly to White House political adviser Bob Haldeman (Nixon's Karl Rove) and not to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.

No doubt Goss would be more discreet in showing his hand, but his appointment as director would be the ultimate in politicization. He has long shown himself to be under the spell of Vice President Dick Cheney, and would likely report primarily to him and to White House political adviser Karl Rove rather than to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Goss would almost certainly follow lame-duck director George Tenet's practice of reading to the president in the morning and become an integral part of the "White House team." The team-membership phenomenon is particularly disquieting.

If the failure-prone experience of the past few years has told us anything, it is that being a "team member" in good standing is the kiss of death for the CIA director's primary role of "telling it like it is" to the president and his senior advisers. It was a painful moment of truth when former Speaker Newt Gingrich, like Cheney, a frequent visitor to CIA headquarters told the press that Tenet was "so grateful to the president that he would do anything for him."

Rep. Goss has no chance of heading CIA: Roberts - At the end of last month, Rockefeller issued a public statement warning the president not to nominate a CIA director whom Democrats would view as partisan.

“We need a director that is not only knowledgeable and capable but unquestionably independent,” said Rockefeller. “I strongly urge the President to look for an individual with unimpeachable, nonpartisan national-security credentials and the stature and independence to bring about much-needed reform of our intelligence agencies.”

Key Democrats in the House also oppose Goss’s possible nomination to the CIA. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), formerly the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence panel, recently blasted Goss as too partisan.

She and other key Democrats were furious that during a floor debate last month Goss displayed a poster on the House floor criticizing Sen. John Kerry for favoring intelligence budget cuts.

“I didn’t get the impression on the floor yesterday that Chairman Goss was somebody who was putting himself in line for the director of CIA,” Pelosi said at a meeting with reporters last month, adding, “The crowner for me was when [he] held up something about John Kerry that was, I think, supposed to be clever.”

Bobo had not decided whether to nominate a new CIA director before the November election. But over the weekend, Roberts and Rockefeller publicly urged Bush not to delay his choice. It is widely believed that Bush will soon appoint a new CIA director, partly to avoid extra criticism should terrorists strike the homeland between now and November.

Couldn't we have done better than Porter Wagoner?

NOW THE STORM IS ALMOST OVER
WE HAVE ALMOST REACHED THE END
I CAN HEAR THE FINAL WARNING
THERE'S A SILENCE IN THE WIND