Porter Goss: A Dangerous Choice for CIA Chief

[troublemaker]

Putting any partisan in the soon-to-be-vacant head job at CIA is a bad idea. Putting a raging partisan hack in the job is actually dangerous. House Intelligence Committee chair Porter Goss, widely presumed to be Bush's choice for the job, has been grotesquely partisan lately, lobbying for the job by doing the administration's political bidding in a position that's supposed to be highly independent. (He's been key to WH strategy to pin 9/11 and Iraq on George Tenet so I don't know how he would even be received at CIA.)

Major examples of recent political abuse of his prestigious position abound and I hope folks will offer their own picks. My personal favorite is comparatively small, but quite telling: On the day Richard Clarke testified before the 9/11 Commission Goss accused Clarke of perjury in his earlier appearances before Goss' committee. Since that testimony was classified reporters couldn't check for themselves; the only basis for the story was Goss offering his word as proof. Only a crazy person would lie about a thing like that, so most news sources ran the story. Subsequently, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee privy to the classified testimony came forward to say Goss was, unh... being less than candid, and the whole matter was dropped. In order to smear Clarke, Goss had--IMO at the direction of the WH--lied about the classified proceedings of the House Intelligence Committee, got caught red-handed, and just dropped the subject...

He has been so partisan that Kerry could not trust him at CIA and would have little choice but to relieve him of the post ASAP upon assuming office. So we would have six months of on-the-job training for Goss, a man with no *practical* intelligence experience, and then another change at CIA to replace Goss with an intelligence professional... all of this in a "time of war."

If Bush cared one whit for the United States he would meet with Kerry and select someone both men agree upon, thereby guaranteeing needed continuity at CIA no matter what happens in the election. That move would make Bush look very good and probably help him with independent voters, but Bush would not even consider it because:

1) Bush/Cheney cannot implicitly acknowledge the possibility of Kerry becoming President because their entire electoral argument is based on monarchical or theological inevitability.

2) These people aren't pretending; they really are paranoid and stupid and vain

3) These people don't care one whit for the United States.

[troublemaker]

1. Link to Clarke smear (added)

http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/3/26/95600.shtml

House Intel Chair: Clarke Is 'Lying'

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is accusing former White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke of flat-out "lying" in his sworn testimony this week before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Clarke’s testimony to our committee is 180 degrees out of line with what he is saying in his book," Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., told Roll Call yesterday. "He’s either lying in his book or he lied to our committee. It’s one or the other."

Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 Commission mirrored the blistering portrait in his book, where he painted the Bush administration as asleep at the wheel in the war on terrorism.

"If he was lying to a congressional committee, he's got a big problem here," Goss warned....(snip)

[Gordon25]

2. Not to mention the fact that...

...on the morning of 9/11 he was at breakfast in the Senate office building with the head of Pakistani intelligence who, three weeks earlier had instructed his aide (later convicted and executed for the alleged murder of Daniel Pearle) to wire $100,000 to Mohammed Atta in Florida.

No, I don't think I want this guy heading up the CIA.

Gordon25