Hookers involved in Goss resignation?

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 11:43 AM on May 5, 2006.

As my colleague Matthew notes in the Mix, Bush's CIA Director Porter Goss, the man who said, in March of 2004, that "I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified," resigned today, after an abbreviated stint of less than two years. By comparison, George Tenet was director for over seven.

Since shocking ineptitude and a dangerous devotion to the president are de rigeur for power positions these days, we have to ask if it weren't something else at play. Aside from the desire to "spend a little more time with the family," of course.

Last week the Wall St. Journal reported the explosive story that lobbyists had been procuring "hospitality suites" (where prostitutes happened to be waiting) for lawmakers like discredited California Republican Duke Cunningham (who, Matthew notes, has already been connected to Goss...).

But, from Old 33 we learn that Harpers' Ken Silverstein did a little digging of his own on the 27th of April: "I've learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees -- including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post."

And now, a little over a week later the person who holds the most powerful intelligence post resigns? Hmm. Could be nothing.

But then Old 33 also catches this other connection from Justin Rood....

One of the other players in the prostitution scandal is Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor who allegedly attempted to bribe Cunningham and others with prostitutes.

Rood speculates:

Actually, make that a double-yowzah: Remember that Goss is the one who plucked one of Wilkes' old San Diego friends, the unusual and colorful Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, out of CIA middle-management obscurity to be his #3 at the agency. At the time of Foggo's appointment, no one could figure out where he came from, or how Goss knew him.

But if Goss was at the [prostitution] "parties," I wonder, was Foggo there too? Did they see each other? Is this where Goss had an opportunity to gauge Foggo's abilities, and determine he was qualified for the CIA executive director post?

The tally: Word is, a top CIA man is involved in prostitution scandal. Top CIA man retires. Man inexplicably hired by Top CIA guy is friend of a key prostitution scandal player? Paradise Goss'd? Goss'd in Translation?

Bob Geiger finds this comforting gem from the Yahoo story:

"The al-Qaida leaders haven't been found 'primarily because they don't want us to find them and they're going to great lengths to make sure we don't find them,' Goss said in a November interview on ABC's Good Morning America."

Can this be shocking ineptitude from the man who wrote a memo two weeks into the job telling his employees that they were little more than a booster club for the Republican Party:

"[Our job is to] support the administration and its policies in our work. As agency employees, we do not identify with, support, or champion opposition to the administration or its policies."

The very latest buzz is that Goss may run against Katherine Harris in the Republican primary for a seat in the U.S. Senate, according to the St. Petersburg Times' blog. "Given his rocky tenure at the CIA that seems hard to swallow," writes Adam C. Smith, but then:

"He'd be an awesome candidate," CFO candidate Tom Gallagher said when asked about the Goss for senate talk. When we suggested Goss' CIA experience might explain why this would be the best kept political secret in Florida, Gallagher didn't miss a beat: "That would be about the only secret they kept."

(DailyKos, TPM, Harper's, The Buzz)

--> Sign up for Peek in your inbox... every morning! (Go here and check Peek box).

Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.