This take on the Goss resignation, by Mac Ranger at Mac's Mind, is extremely interesting. This is someone with a heck of a lot more knowledge on the subject than a lot of the general blogospheric commentators (myself included). He points out one thing that really makes you stop short and go "hmmmm". Bush appeared with Goss and made a show of support. No way, no way at all, that Bush would have done that if there was a Goss tie into what's being called "hookergate" by the ever less creative press.
If the rogues thought Goss was a ball-buster, they haven't seen anything yet, as the CIA will most likely now come directly under the DNI, John Negroponte.
Let the fun begin.
He also thinks that Goss did exactly what he set out to do in the cleanup of the CIA. It very well may be he did.
Pretty silly spin as far as I can see.
The scandals are still not close to Goss, in terms of indictments or anything like that – in fact if you watched the news tonight you can see that the MSM is verrry reluctant to even mention the scandal rumors. So there is no rational reason for Bush NOT to do the normal thing and appear with Goss at a going away press-opportunity. If Goss goes down it will not be for several months, and by then this little 5 minutes will not be remembered. On the other hand, for him NOT to have done the appearance would have elevated the rumoring into high gear.
No doubt Goss was in a difficult position. He had a mandate from Bush to do a political purge in the CIA, but he was very clutzy and incompetent at it. He brought in political hacks as his underlings, thereby destroying his own credibility as a supposed reformer of the place. He made no attempt to positivly lead the people that he intended to keep in place, so that everyone became a bit paranoid and defensive, and morale went into the toilet. Then to top it off, Bush undermines him by passing him over for DNI.
Mac is a bitter ranting partisan spinner, no matter how much knowledge he has. Caveat emptor.
Rove, rove, rove your boat.
I still don’t think Bush would have stood next to him if there was a chance it would come back on him. I might be wrong, but it doesn’t seem like a good move. There are others, aside from Mac, saying much the same thing.