You liberals are always reading way too much into things. Do you obsessively form conspiracy theories every time a coworker leaves? It's a job. People come and go. Goss probably just wanted to spend time with his family or pursue other opportunities.

Al, get a life

Cleek: Al, get a life

Do you ever make your own points, or do you just follow me around and criticize my commentary?

50 cents on the hookers

Colorful bunch, these Republicans. Gay hookers in the White House, straight hookers in the Watergate...while they've been totally incompetent and corrupt, I think we all have to grudgingly admit that they've made a smashing success of restoring honor and diignity to the White House.

Al, if your "commentary" was anything more than the scrapings off the bottom of Limbaugh's litterbox, i might bother trying to respond to it.

but it's not.

i hear limbaugh's cat o'd on oxyconten, so that can't be where al gets it from.

But you DO reply. Every time. You don't ever address any of my points, nor do you ever present any evidence.

Is there ANY evidence for prostitution at the Watergate? Is there ANY evidence that Goss's resignation was anything other than routine personell shifts? All I've seen is idle speculation. Seriously. Substantiate what's being said here. Or is that too hard for you?

Golly, Al, does this mean that you will issue a polite apology when the news and evidence comes out? Id be interested to read it.

The trolls are becoming defensive. This is a new twist. Maybe they want to humanize themselves before their masters get indicted.

Al, you're a troll. it's pointless to respond. you're not here to discuss, you're here to shit on the floor and kick sand in people's eyes. you can't go a single story without some inane "you [...] liberals" or "kevin is so dumb". wnat to be taken seriously ? try not being a dick.

Is there any evidence that your name is actually "Al", and that you aren't one of those fake Al's?

Well?

JPOD doing his wishful thinking thing again. Bush outright fires no one no matter how bad they are.

What is al's deal?

He compulsively stalks this blog like no one ever has on any blog.

He's like the worlds biggest anti-fan.
A stalker, some one who fixates on a guy who he disagrees w/ on everything.
A very strange guy.

IN ANY case, the Negroponte-induced resignation story has some plausibility, at least on a procedural level. Goss would know that Foggo would sing if he felt betrayed by his boss, and there are a lot of procurement scandals brewing with Foggo as a principal actor.

We will know if Foggo gets fired as the first act of BushCo's new/interim CIA director

> He compulsively stalks this blog like no one ever has on any blog.

There is more han one "Al"

The name is too easy to spell.

I'm loathe to admit it but my money is on Podhoretz.

Podhoretz's posit that Bush would not have made a friendly show of Goss' departure is off the mark: Bush ALWAYS makes a friendly show of anyone's departure if indictments aren't already handed down or imminent. Remember the White House's top domestic advisor, who was caught scamming Target stores to supplement his income? The charges in that case weren't made public or filed for over a month after he was caught, and he resigned to go spend time with his family (cough) pretty quickly after that. Yeah, as if the White House didn't know.

Example #2: Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton resigned pretty quickly after allegations of Abramoff involvement in the Dept. of the Interior surfaced. We'll see how long it takes before the friendly goodbye she got from Bush turns into deeper allegations.

Al, is there any evidence that his resignation was a routine personnel shift?

As far as liberals "reading way too much into things", I'll refer you to every false allegation made by conservative windbags during the eight years of the Clinton presidency. You people can dish it out in spades, but when the tables are turned, you sure do squeal a lot.

I think it's because of Hookergate. Podhoretz is wrong.

Al: You liberals are always reading way too much into things. Do you obsessively form conspiracy theories every time a coworker leaves? It's a job. People come and go. Goss probably just wanted to spend time with his family or pursue other opportunities.

Without saying anything about Hookergate or any other "conspiracy theories", the circumstances suggest it was not as innocuous as all this. First, oddly enough his statement doesn't use any of the usual DC boilerplate excuses about opportunities, health or spending time with family. If that played a part, why wouldn't he say so, even as a diversion? Second, the resignation came without warning apparently to nearly everyone except the president. Third, there is no indication of a replacement, and they didn't even have anything to say about an interim, suggesting again that this was a sudden decision.

What is al's deal?

That's a truly interesting question. Unlike tbrosz, who's 80% idiot/10% liar/10% miscellaneous, the real Al is quite literally 100% liar. He's a genuine sociopath. Authoritarian governments have real problems because they can never find enough people like Al -- usually they're stuck with thousands of tbroszes.

Any American political leader who really wishes the U.S. ill would snap Al right up. (And indeed, they may well have done so already.) You don't see talent like his every day.

Hookers, and congressional bribes, and contracting scandals, Oh My!

I don't get where everyone comes up with the notion that Bush's departure statement was particularly friendly. I thought it was about as noncommittal as Bush could make it and still keep a straight face.

Moreover, no one seems to have mentioned in this thread that Goss' resignation is effective *immediately*. If this were a power struggle between Goss and Negroponte, he might have been fired, but it would have been disguised as a resignation, and it wouldn't have been *officially* effective for at least 30 days.

Folks, give Al a break. His input is responsible for about half the replies on this blog. Big traffic generator - Al.

And you always learn at least something from the opposition's spin.

It's clear that this was all the doing of some partisan Democrat hookers. Someone needs to check to see if any of the hookers gave money to John Kerry's campaign.

It's a job. People come and go. Goss probably just wanted to spend time with his family or pursue other opportunities.

What's just as likely is that Goss wanted more time to pursue his love of excessive masturbation and his job was getting in the way.

That's a truly interesting question. Unlike tbrosz, who's 80% idiot/10% liar/10% miscellaneous, the real Al is quite literally 100% liar. He's a genuine sociopath. Authoritarian governments have real problems because they can never find enough people like Al -- usually they're stuck with thousands of tbroszes.

Brilliant and worth repeating. I salute you, sir!

Maybe Goss told Bush that the word is "noo-klee-ar" and Bush was so offended that he sacked him on the spot. Because he's still pissed off about the whole Colbert thing.

"Al" is "GOP who is "Don P" and god knows who else.

He trolls so much he screws up some times. Today, "GOP" was responding to "Al" and forgot to change his name to "GOP".

Ignore or mock it, but definitely don't take it seriously. It's just another piece of human garbage.

Goss and "Dusty" Foggo seem to be pretty 'close'. Was Foggo the swing hitter in Fornigate? Foggo was Goss's 'Executive Director', right?

Maybe Foggo was charged with making Emissions Possible for the Watergate 'boys club'.

wishIwuz2: "Folks, give Al a break."

For the story angle on Porter Goss, I vote for the GOP's hookers. After all, Al has been admittedly voting for GOP hookers every election, and he seems happy about it.

There, I gave him a deserving nod ...

So --Negroponte doesn't trust Republicans at the CIA anymore than anyone else does?

Finally another "-gate" where the "gate" actually means something. It's been a long 30 years.

(n'yuk, n'yuk) How's the weather, Don?

If Goss were somehow implicated in matters relating to Duke Cunningham, say, there's no way on earth Bush would have made such a friendly show of his departure.

I can think of a way: if Bush were as crooked as Goss and Cunningham, he'd want to handle it as delicately as possible.

The scary thing is how quickly the whole scandal-ridden house of cards is imploding and burning.

No one in the administration cares, of course, as long as (1) they are not one of the few fishes caught in one or another of the nets, and (2) they or their sponsors have been able to gorge enough at the public trough that they will walk away from the wreckage fat and happy.

The country and its taxpayers, though, are left holding the bag.

Republicans...

Would it be too much to ask the media to please resist the temptation to attach the shopworn suffix "-gate" to every real or potential political scandal? It really denotes a lazy intellect on the part of American journalists.

Oh, I see I answered my own question. Never mind.

They aren't mutually exclusive theories, really.

Mary McCarthy connection?

Folks, Al isn't even Al. He's fake Al. The real Al died of cancer a while back, and what's left is imitators.

Something happened. The DCI doesn't just quit unannounced unless he's been told to quit. As for the reasons, I don't see why many or all of the possibilities Kevin mentions can't be simultaneously true.

Say there was a brewing fight between Goss and Negroponte, perhaps over turf, perhaps Foggo. Then the WaPo is about to run a damaging story, calls for a comment and lets the powers that be know what's coming. Last minute damage control attempts lead to Goss leaving post haste.

Perhaps we'll know more tomorrow.

Jim:I don't get where everyone comes up with the notion that Bush's departure statement was particularly friendly. I thought it was about as noncommittal as Bush could make it and still keep a straight face.

i agree, the "transistional period" and "he has a 5 year plan" struck me as particularly strange. Goss has only been there less than 2yrs, and his selling point was, iirc, that he'd be able to remake the CIA, not sorta get the job started.
and c'mon, even Scott "no, no, no, you can't make me repeat that i didn't say that" McClellan gets to stay on until his replacement gets settled in.

Can we rename the scandal: "Sex for Contracts" or "Sex for Spies" scadal or something else please?

If Goss were somehow implicated in matters relating to Duke Cunningham, say, there's no way on earth Bush would have made such a friendly show of his departure.

You know, they just don't tell George anything.

And he may not be indicted soon, but suspect something like that is likely and they're giving the agency a long news-break from his assocation with it so people won't immediately be able to associate his present activity with the CIA, he'll simply be a 'former-Congressman who was briefly in charge of the CIA' in every news story.

And it's just second nature in the Bush world. People with a lot to hide are happy to hide behind one anothers' hiding.

Seriously? The real Al died of cancer? I'm a long time reader, and I didn't know that! Wow... RIP.

Sadly this affair doesn't have to be "one or the other". It could be that Negroponte used the breaking poker-party hooker scandal in a bureaucratic move to undercut Goss and get rid of him, taking more power for himself.

Notice that he's now got control of all intel that's terror-related. Gosh, pretty soon we'll be getting more information about Iran's terrorists, won't we?

We are far from clear of this yet.

I have no life. I like to share this fact with the whole world.

Scandal. It is Friday afternoon, after all.

Otherwise they would have made a show of Goss' personal plans for the future, announced his replacemnt and his work during transition to new head. Etc. The usual guff.)

The current integrated theory:
-Foggo's mixed up in the Cunningham-Wilkes thing.
-Goss was told by Negroponte to fire Foggo.
-Instead, Goss fired McCarthy, the person investigating Foggo, because Foggo has Goss's nuts in a vise over something.
-McCarthy called the Washington Post to tell them where they could find Goss's nuts.
-The Post called the White House.

No one resigns "effective immediately" unless something is very wrong. If it was a personnel decision or internal politics, he'd give 30 day notice and Bush would give him a nice sendoff to spend more time with his family. They'd have a replacement already in the wings and would be moving the story from Goss to the new blood. This was a hastily called news conference on a Friday with no successor, and no reasons given. All of which contribute to the "don't let the door knob hit you in the ass" atmosphere of today's events. If Goss isn't in real trouble and this is just a normal shuffle of personnel, Bolten and Bush handled the optics of it very poorly.

wishIwuz2: "How's the weather, Don?"

It's been raining hard all morning -- not that we need it, since Oahu had received over 70 inches during a very recent six-week period.

On a weather & politics-related note, it appears that a friend of Hawaii's GOP Gov. Linda Lingle, Jimmy Pflueger, is under investigation for the recent collapse of the Kaloko dam on Kauai last March, which killed seven people downstream.

Seems that he owned the property in question, was selling "lakefront lots" alongside the Kaloko Reservoir, and had the dam overfilled of its state-regulated capacity by 25% because the high water looked more appealling to potential real estate clientele. Our 70+-inch deluge of rain -- which was concentrated on Oahu and Kauai -- subsequently set in motion a tragic chain of events.

The governor's appointed AG, Mark Bennett, recused his department from the investigation, citing the adminisstration's potential conflict of interest. I'll give her credit for at least doing that.

Maybe Goss wouldn't fake intel about IRAN for Bush/Cheney.

I know. I know.

Well, that of course is the point. Goss was going to "fix" the Agency so it would fabricate evidence.

And the moral is....don't mess with the CIA.

ROFLMAO.

Was it just me or did the news conference with the President have an atmosphere of the knocking at gate in Macbeth?

Holy fucking hell. I saw the teaser on Eschaton that there was going to be a personnel-related announcement but I didn't think it'd be the goddamn CIA director.

Can we get a pool going on what brought this on? My money's on Foggo/Wilkes/hookers, but it seems like there were a number of individuals who wanted to whack Goss....this is like playing Clue: it was Colonel Negroponte, in the Library, with the Candlestick....

PS Authoritarian governments have real problems because they can never find enough people like Al -- usually they're stuck with thousands of tbroszes.
--now that's a flame! Yow. I got a sunburn just reading that....

For my money "Al" is actually Mr Calpundit himself....he does tend to goose the threads along, and a real troll would never be that persistent (or persistently able to miss a point)....

Wonkette is now speculating that Goss plans to file for the Florida Senate primary. The conflict with Negroponte might have made another office more appealing. I suspect we will know soon. The state party has been looking for an alternative to Katharine Harris.

I heard that, too, Mike K, but the way I heard it, Goss is holding out until the Florida Republican Party comes up with more hookers for him to bonk while upholding family values to the Christian Coalition's complete satisfaction.

The conflict with Negroponte might have made another office more appealing.

Five minutes later, I'm still laughing at this. Yeah, so much "more appealing" that he resigned abruptly on a Friday afternoon with no successor appointed, and the White House didn't even try to spin it. Man, that must be some "Senate campaign" schedule Goss has got this weekend, huh? He better get started!

Goss went today because it's Friday and this sort of bad news involving hooker scandals is best dispense on a weekend when it won't build momentum over the week around coffee coolers around the world. That's the theory anyways.

John Podhoretz:

If Goss were somehow implicated in matters relating to Duke Cunningham, say, there's no way on earth Bush would have made such a friendly show of his departure.

Just like Dubya didn't give Tom Delay a friendly send-off...Riiight...

I'm going for something having to do with Hookergate, either for Goss personally or in connection with Foggio.

But for some reason, I have a feeling that it may have something more to do with intelligence leaks than anything else; not that Goss was the one leaking...More like Goss couldn't put a lid on an increasingly anti-Bush CIA...

Wonder if we'll hear about some extraordinarily major Bush administration cock-up in the next few weeks?

Well, I mean more extraordinarily major than usual..

Plus, maybe Foggo didn't "own" the CIA employee handbook like he should? In any case, it does look bad when the hoes are blowing all these guys at the Watergate and then bribery is involved. Perhaps the kickbacks go way up the chain...or don't...but the real truth is that CIA director needs to be a decent judge of character...right? Or wrong?

Wonder if we'll hear about some extraordinarily major Bush administration cock-up in the next few weeks? Well, I mean more extraordinarily major than usual..

Gosh, what are the odds?

Has there ever been a period of a few weeks that hasn't had news about some extraordinarily major Bush regime cock-up come out?

but the real truth is that CIA director needs to be a decent judge of character...right? Or wrong?

Repost of mine from prior thread:

Great, isn't it, that we had as head of the CIA a man who was so vulnerable to blackmail? Just the kind of top-quality pick you'd expect from the serially incompetent Bush team, the people who thought that corrupt, mobbed-up goombah Bernie Kerik would be a great head of Homeland Security and that Harriet "Best Friends Forever!" Miers would make an august Supreme Court Justice.

Christ, imagine the damage if some foreign government had gotten hold of Goss' involvement in this hooker scandal and had threatened to expose him unless he played along?

Has there ever been a period of a few weeks that hasn't had news about some extraordinarily major Bush regime cock-up come out?

Maybe just before the inauguration?

Anyone remember Goss's bit part in Fahrenheit 911? Man, he was such douche. I could totally see that guy forking over cash to chat up girls.

I meant in 2000, of course.

Nice Libby. You managed to work Mary McCarthy in there too. I like your integrated theory better than mine.

There's no thread here on Representative Kennedy

It's right along with the Condi Rice workout thread in the pile labeled "shit nobody cares about".

Time:"Earlier this week, in a little noticed move, Negroponte signaled that he would be moving still more responsibility from the CIA to his own office, including control over the analysis of terrorist groups and threats."

I don't know about anyone else, but everytime I read the name Negroponte I think about Death Squads. So I find very, very chilling the idea that Negroponte is "...moving still more responsibility from the CIA to his own office."

"There's no thread here on Representative Kennedy"

If Kennedy was driving drunk, he is an asshole and deserves to go to jail. Its hard to say if he was - he seems to have been allowed not to take a sobriety test. Kinda like Cheney after shooting a dude in the face.

One thing is clear. If it was a showdown between Goss and Negroponte we know that it wasn't a struggle over whether this administration should be allowed to continue using the intelligence apparatus to hack the Constitution into bloody pieces.

Kennedy has admitted addiction to prescription drugs and is entering the Mayo Clinic--again. (Note that I predicted this last night.) He should be subject to the same rules as anyone else driving under the influence.

Why mhr seems to think this should be an embarrassment to Democrats in general is beyond me.

PTate: Indeed. Pretty frightening stuff.

"There's no thread here on Representative Kennedy and his latest escapade."

What is there to say? The episode doesn't have any broader implications.

I don't know about anyone else, but everytime I read the name Negroponte I think about Death Squads. So I find very, very chilling the idea that Negroponte is "...moving still more responsibility from the CIA to his own office."

As I recall, Goss, prior to being appointed DCI, had frequently, throughout his career, called for the CIA to have an active role in domestic law enforcement alongside the CIA, and a lot of other restrictions.

Having Negroponte as DNI and Goss at CIA was never something I liked, I'd rather if they both were gone, though my happiness with Goss departing is mitigated by the fact that Bush will no doubt do his best to find someone worse to replace him with.

Only one reason anybody leaves a Bush post: to spend more time with one's lawyers.

Shouldn't have to be that way. It just is.

Perhaps this is related to the leaks, not the Watergate parties. They're cleaning house. Maybe I'm paranoid, but are they consolidated power and control, Soviet-style? Chilling.

Bush's new Chief of Staff, Bolten, possibly had something to do with it.

Help me.

CaptainsQuartersBlog is speculating Bush will name Frances Townsend early next week. She has been Bush's Homeland Security Advisor since 2004.

Porter Goss's quicktime disappearance is completely noteworthy.

Major Washington DC players don't just simply "disappear."

I mean... this ain't the USSR and we don't have purges.

That means only one thing:

Porter Goss was doing something seriously shameful.

Like pederasty.

What do you think about that Al?
Or how about you Kevin Frequecny?

Care to weigh in on the subject?

I love the so called "experts".

Once again all wrong. And getting the big bucks to be wrong. Goss left because the writing is on the wall, someone has a clear trail to the Republican hookers and hootenannys. A person would have to be incredibly naive to think we will get to see the full scale of this scandal.
The person holding the temperature control to the scandal has the Bush Presidency by the tail. It will be interesting to see which shoes drop in the next few months. Which policy decisions will suddenly become more important, and which less important.

Maybe you think I'm a conspiracy theorist, but I think, considering the past five years, that most "reasonable" people are simpletons.

mhr: "There's no thread here on Representative Kennedy and his latest escapade. You'd rather not bring up the subject? That's understandable. I understand."

That has no more relevance to the topic at hand than Rush Limbaugh's recent plea bargain on his own narcotics rap.

Further, there's a big difference between a stoned Kennedy's accidental sideswipe of a concrete barrier, and the stone-cold-sober Bush Administration's purposeful hit-and-run on the U.S. Constitution.

With few exceptions, you don't see the rest of us obsessing about the Bush twins' arrests for public intoxication or using fake IDs, or the legal travails of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's children thanks to their involvement with drugs and alcohol. And despite our vast differences with George W. Bush, I and many others applaud his apparent ability at the age of 40 to foreswear his own further use of alcohol and drugs, and get on with his life.

Bottom line, as long as no one was hurt, then such incidents need to be handled internally by the families in question, and should not be the province of the rest of us.

Alcohol and drug-related family or personal issues are universal to almost everyone here, regardless of whether we are Democrat or Republican. And unless we want to share our stories with you of friends or family members struggling with problems related to substance abuse, then what business is it of yours?

Nuf ced on this subject. If you want to revel in such lowbrow tawdriness, then go buy a six-pack and watch Nancy Grace and Headliners and Legends.

drip drip drip, tic tic tic...

Still waiting for an answer to this:

"Porter Goss was doing something seriously shameful.
Like pederasty.
What do you think about that Al?
Or how about you "Frequently unkind?"

Drip drip drip. Tic tic tic.

Still waiting for the party of "family values" to chime in.

Drip drip drip. Tic tic tic.

What do you think "Al"?
What so you think "Frequency small"?

Porter Goss was illegally fucking someone.
Was it boys?
Girls?
Or just black women in fishnets?

Drip drip drip. Tic tic tic.
Waiting & waiting & waiting & waiting.

Speaking of reveling in lowbrow tawdriness:

busdrivermike: "Goss left because the writing is on the wall, someone has a clear trail to the Republican hookers and hootenannys."

You must be referring to Mr. Goss's former House Republican colleagues. I would think that most working girls wouldn't vote Republican.

Frequency Kenneth: "CaptainsQuartersBlog is speculating Bush will name Frances Townsend early next week ..."

... while Elliot Abrams is named as her replacement at NSA, and the Deliverance movie soundtrack plays in the background to underscore the incestuousness of it all. These guys sure know how to stage a political event.

You forgot to cite and link to Josh Marshall and company at Talkingpointsmemo.com, THE intrepid go to source for information on this Cunningham/Wilkes/Foggo/influence buying/Hookergate story.

"I am not a pederast," said Goss, half in earnest.

I had a second's thought about the Florida Senate race when the word came this AM, but if that were what was going to happen this is not the way it would have been orchestrated. The announcement allows way too much negative speculation. And the idea that someone necessary to the nation's security as CIA director would leave the post after only one year is not exactly a way to seem like a statesmanlike figure.

My wife swears that she heard on the radio a (clearly young) reporter refer to this new scandal as "Watergate-gate", obviously with no idea of the origin of the suffix "-gate" to denote a scandal. :)

Come on people, he's probably just retiring to spend more time with his hookers.

TIME says the replacement will be General Hayden.

Wishful thinking, but I hope his replacement is Mary Margaret Graham. And it would be a nice post-facto kick in the nuts to Goss.

""I am not a pederast," said Goss, half in earnest."

Poor Ernest . . .

I actually chuckled at this. I must be sick.

Goss promoted Foggo to Executive Director of the CIA, (#3 position in the agency) leapfrogging him over hundreds of more capable and experienced players. Foggo was at best only a mid-level backwater procurement guy. Why did Goss do that? Either Foggo held Goss' nuts in a vice with some embarassing evidence, or Goss elevated Foggo to enable him to do higher level corruption that also benefited Goss. Either way, someone was doing the nasty and it will likely be made public in the next few weeks.

Who is a guy named Foggo? Sounds like Sluggo, wasn't he a cartoon character? I mean, a guy with the name Foggo should not be anywhere an executive position.

i think that you have to pick up on porter's past.

book & snake as a yalie. not skull & bones, but as close to that as you can get without being in that more sacrosanct fraternity.

like many yalies,employed by the outfit. danny hopsicker in his book BARRY & THE BOYS publishes a pic of porter boss and the assassins in mexico city.

many of the assassins in this photo were long-time retainers of the orchestrator of the dallas coup, george herbert walker bush[also the action officer for the bop].

most educational are danny hopsicker's posts on his website madcowprod.com. especially the latest one concerning the DC9 disguised as a usg aircraft that was caught in mexico some days ago.

i find it so odd that hopsicker's research is ignored by left and right. it doesn't take a genius to extrapolate that in the porter goss/katherine harris congressional districts there was some serious drug-trafficking. apparently sanctioned by the usg. countenanced by the bushits.

and then there is the hopsicker book investigating mohammed atta and the venice flight school..WELCOME TO TERRORLAND.

my guess is that porter goss can be linked to the DC9.

my guess is that porter goss may know so much, may finally have expressed some opposition to the plans of the bushit, that he was fired without much thinking.

follow the future of porter goss closely. i suspect a suicide or an odd accidental death within the near future. if you get on an airplane with porter goss on the passenger manifest, get off the plane. many will be killed so as to eliminate him.

i think porter goss may be a dead man walking.

It's not a big deal - it's just part of the No Hooker Left Behind program.

"book & snake", skull & bones. Bell, book & candle. As a neophyte, someone please explain these clubs. Is it like Masonic. What?

Also, why do you have to go to the Harvard Law School to become a Supreme Court Judge. The proportion is way out of kilter with odds. Why?

Also, why do you have to go to the Harvard Law School to become a Supreme Court Judge. The proportion is way out of kilter with odds. Why?

Good question. I figure it must have something to do with the average HLS graduate being intelligent enough to tell the average senator to go fuck himself without the latter catching on.

The reason why you have to be a non-hispanic Catholic is a little more obvious.

if you don't understand the importance of secret societies, you aren't dealing with a full deck.

at yale,the important secret societies were skull & bones, scroll & key, book & snake.

at harvard, the porcellian, the a.d., the fly, the spee clubs.

at princeton, cottage,ivy.perhaps tiger. could have been more, but these i know.

suffice it to say, membership in these somewhat secret societies vouchsafed you a future within the establishment. if you wanted it.

at yale, the outfit restricted their recruiting to the members of these clubs. skull & bones may have been completely outfit. scroll & key, book & snake may also have been. peter mathiessen, scroll & key, i think, one of the founders of the paris review with the princetonian clubby, george plimpton, was on the outfit payroll. as was george.

upon plimpton's death, npr did a paris review retrospective. it would make you wonder if npr wasn't an outfit proprietary. throughout the requiem, the outfit's role in the paris review went unmentioned. the history related was the fictional history.

after listening to that dirge, it recommend that you regard anything you hear reported by npr/atc with a large amount of skepticism.

The reason why you have to be a non-hispanic Catholic is a little more obvious.

Posted by: B on May 6, 2006 at 3:26 AM | PERMALINK

Except that he made some really screwy rulings and was way out there compared to the other judges he conferred with, I've obviously got a blind spot here. Enlighten me.

Original question stands. What are these clubs? Masonic or what?

if you don't understand the importance of secret societies, you aren't dealing with a full deck.

Posted by: albertchampion on May 6, 2006 at 3:40 AM | PERMALINK

Ooh! albertchampion! Harsh! So if I don't know what you know I'm retarded? If you're a genious, good luck, but don't be so condescending to the rest of us. If you're not, then how are you on genetic cloning, nano-physics, inner space, sub-nuclear physics?

OK. You seem to know something about these guys. How do they work? Any insight?

You liberals are always reading way too much into things. Do you obsessively form conspiracy theories every time a coworker leaves? It's a job. People come and go. Goss probably just wanted to spend time with his family or pursue other opportunities.

AL AL AL

So far the Liber ALs have been pretty close.
People come and Go thats true. But when they come and go in Bush LOYAL LA LA LAND,
Something is Awry!

Oranges and lemons
Say the Bells of St. Clemens!

What are these clubs? Masonic or what?

Pyramid Schemes.

The lower 90% [Like America under BUSH] Doesn't know the true intent of the upper levels.

The Masons are Really basically Zionists. The Lower members are unaware. They seek Knowledge, but are lied too. You can see, without conspiracy theory, or religion how this could easily be used to promote hidden agendas.

Demolay comes to my mind from an encounter with them. AnyWhoo. Jacques Demolay was the last Grand Knight of the Knights Templar.
I would follow that PATH of History
The Knights Templar. Today I have no Idea what they are telling people.

As an aside George Orwell was a Martinist, another society, yet he wasn't Orwell, He was Really Blair.
An Imperial Officer.

You owe me three Farthings
Say the Bells of Shore Ditch

Heres a good one for ye..

What type of animal has 4 legs in the morning, 2 legs
at noon and night none?

I totally understand that in today's poetry there is no incllination to rhyme, scan or have meter. So I am not surprised . . .

You owe me three Farthings
Say the Bells of Shore Ditch

Heres a good one for ye..

What type of animal has 4 legs in the morning, 2 legs
at noon and night none?

Posted by: Mach Tuck on May 6, 2006 at 4:23 AM | PERMALINK

"Oranges and lemons" say the Bells of St. Clement's
"You owe me five farthings"
say the Bells of St. Martin's
"When will you pay me?"
say the Bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow rich"
say the Bells of Shoreditch
"When will that be?"
say the Bells of Stepney
"I do not know"
say the Great Bells of Bow
"Here comes a Candle to light you to Bed
Here comes a Chopper to Chop off your Head
Chip chop chip chop - the Last Man's Dead."

A rather savage party dance.

And, no, I didn't yet solve your riddle.

Bring your own smokescreen. Goss obviously resigned in a hurry, but maybe it has more to do with distracting the media from the UN/Torture story, but, if they were that good, they wouldn't have been this bad. Something is going on, and it may just be that now was the best timing to show Goss the door.

Obviously, one would find it hard to believe that Bush and the GOP were courting even more controversy right now, and wouldn't have preferred to have Goss just exit quietly without all the drama. That's what you have to look into, and whether they knew about it days or weeks in advance and chose just this moment to throw a smokescreen over something else (like UN Torture investigation?), with them knowing the Goss thing was already a mess, or if something recently just happened and none of this was planned at all except for the cover stories trying to pin everything on the "assistant".

The problem with having to generate a steady stream of postings is that the blogger must of necessity sometimes be little more than a political gossip columnist.

Can we rename the scandal: "Sex for Contracts" or "Sex for Spies" scadal or something else please?

On some other blog I heard it referred to as "Twattergate"
ROFLMAO

Obviously, one would find it hard to believe that Bush and the GOP were courting even more controversy right now, and wouldn't have preferred to have Goss just exit quietly without all the drama. That's what you have to look into, and whether they knew about it days or weeks in advance and chose just this moment to throw a smokescreen over something else (like UN Torture investigation?), with them knowing the Goss thing was already a mess, or if something recently just happened and none of this was planned at all except for the cover stories trying to pin everything on the "assistant".

Now that post hits the mark. Thanks, Jimm!

I just remember that icy stare that Negroponte gave Bush when he was appointed - a stare that said Bush better NEVER, EVER mislead or BE two-faced in anyway with Mr. Negroponte.

Gross took a back seat that day and knew that he was taking a back seat but Gross was cleary upset with this fact. Bush talks about loyalty but never really practices it and Negroponte knew it too. No real honor among criminals like Bush and company.

Whatever Bush does in the future, he sure better NEVER EVER mess with cross Negroponte - and Bush knows this. Negroponte is meaner than Bush, Cheney, and Karl Rove combined. Why did Democrats like that guy so much? It seems there are some folks in Bush's administration that out to get Bush and members of this horrid administration - and this must be why Bush can't do anything about Patrick's crminal investigations.

What type of animal has 4 legs in the morning, 2 legs at noon and night none?

Man, crawling on all fours in the morning of life, walking upright in the middle, and legless as a snake in his coffin.

(Though maybe he has 12 legs there with the pallbearers)

The Washington Post reports this morning that a major problem leading to this was that Goss and Bush just never hit it off personality-wise. The daily briefings were apparently awkward. Which I believe, because it rings so true about this White House. It doesn't matter that the guy was a hack who politicized the CIA and drove out decades of combined experience from the agency: If Bush had just LIKED HIM PERSONALLY -- maybe given him a nickname (Gossy? The Port-meister?) he would still be on the job.

Friday, people with knowledge of the continuing Cunningham inquiry said the CIA official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, is under federal criminal investigation in connection with awarding agency contracts. - WSJ May 6, 2006

Four former deputy directors of operations once tried to offer Goss advice about changing the clandestine service without setting off a rebellion, but Goss declined to speak to any of them, said former CIA officials who are aware of the communications. The perception that Goss was conducting a partisan witch hunt grew, too, as staffers asked about the party affiliation of officers who sent in cables or analyses on Iraq that contradicted the Defense Department's more optimistic scenarios. -LA Times, May 6, 2006

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. - Washington Post, May 6, 2006

Virtually all of the theories of course assume that Bush lied when the announcement was made, by indicating that Goss was doing a hecka of a job.

My Bonus Wildly Speculative Theory: Bush is replacing Goss with Genearal Hayden because Goss is no longer sufficiently enthusiastic about supporting Bush's warrantless spying initiatives.

Catch22 might be right in part. I think it's pretty clear that 1) Goss is unhappy about the DCI not being the lead on all intel issues anymore. Now, all 16 agencies are (in theory) coequal under DNI. 2) Goss's bringing Congressional cabana boys to CIA has been a miserable failure on all counts, which is one of the reasons why he's so roundly hated at the Agency. Another is the BS partisan water-carrying for the Bush Administration. 3) Dusty Foggo's all wound up in the Wilkes/Cunningham fracas, and I'd guess Negroponte's yanking the leash. 4) Mike Hayden's a well-respected intel pro, and might be safe for the Administration (or at least Negroponte). Goss is a political hack--always has been (agency experience notwithstanding)--and maybe this is one of the best things that can happen to the CIA. Who knows.

If it were just general dissatisfaction or personality clashes, Goss would have left in the usual way--backslapping, gold watch, announcement of a successor, "I'm staying on to help with the transition," etc. The abruptness of this departure, and the fact that Bush said the absolute minimum about it, means something major happened.

As Jimm says, it could have been this week, or it could have been some time ago and they decided this was the best time to announce it to distract from something else. I really doubt it's the latter since they'd then have had time to make it look good with a story about time with the family or a Senate run or something else. They didn't even do that.

With this administration, one can't help wondering if they decided to let him go down over the hookers to prevent it from being something even more embarrassing or politically dangerous that's bubbling under the surface.

"As Jimm says, it could have been this week, or it could have been some time ago and they decided this was the best time to announce it to distract from something else"

Some WH-friendly source that I found this morning said it was part of personnel changes initiated by Josh Bolton. So that would put it in the same camp as Scott McClellan.

Putting in Hayden, immediately, however, suggests to me that the move is part of Negroponte's expansion of powers. Bushco is strengthening the perimeter of the bunker. Perhaps Goss, though a chump, was a little too far outside the "Team."

TPM points to a WSJ article that reports that Foggo is under criminal investigation in the Cunningham scandal. The article is full of nasty implications.

It resurrects the question of why Goss pulled Foggo from obcurity to be #3 man.

The WH is consolidating intelligence under Negroponte. Hayden is all for warrentless wiretaps. Hayden gets along well with Cheney. How are we not supposed to be paranoid about this?

According to Wonkette, some are speculating that Goss may want to take over Katherine Harris's Senate bid.

I hope it is all about sex scandals. Goss was so obviously a Bush-ista appointment. Now the WH is leaking that Bush never really liked Goss. So is Bush trying to minimize the damage that will occur to the remaining 32% of his support when they hear that prostitutes were involved?

My WSJ link didn't work. Go to TPM and follow his link.

The premise of the CIA is assess foreign intelligence do with national security but for whom... the American people or American government officials? For another interesting link( only a little off topic ) which raises alot of questions that won't be asked or answered at the Senate Confirmation hearing, click on to the red heading BBC News : Video and Audio.

Oh gosh....WP - Dana Priest sez...

Goss, then the Republican chairman of the House intelligence panel, was handpicked by the White House to purge what some in the administration viewed as a cabal of wily spies working to oppose administration policy in Iraq. "He came in to clean up without knowing what he was going to clean up," one former intelligence official said.

Goss's counterinsurgency campaign was so crudely executed by his top lieutenants, some of them former congressional staffers, that they drove out senior and mid-level civil servants who were unwilling to accept the accusation that their actions were politically motivated, some intelligence officers and outside experts said.

Don't agree with Bush - then you must be ones of those awful "liberals" which is synonymous only with a communist - so is the definition of a REPUBLICAN ONLY those that agree with Bush no matter how wrong Bush is? Powell was a liberal. Bush is taking his statement that "Either you are with us, or you are against us," in same light when the same words were uttered by Lenin.

Bush is everybit as vindictive and nasty as Senator Joseph McCarthy.

A war between Republicans.

"The agency was never at war with the White House," contended Gary Berntsen, a former operations officer and self-described Republican and Bush supporter who retired in June 2005. "Eighty-five percent of them are Republicans. The CIA was a convenient scapegoat."

Less than two months after Goss took over, the much-respected deputy director of operations, Stephen R. Kappes, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, resigned in protest over a demand by Goss's chief of staff, Patrick Murray, that Kappes fire Sulick for criticizing Murray.

Lets hope they get rid of Bush - he just isn't a team player and we know Gross was following Bushie orders. I mean everyone in the CIA could end up like Ms. Plume

Republicans are conflicted today. They know they should attack the messenger--but they found out about this from Bush. Man it sucks to be them.
We know this, if it was a simple matter of corruption, incompetence, craven amoral greed, or a Yacht named "Port-stir," he would not have been fired. Nope--it must inolve sex with a woman. This is just my theory, and as you know, one can be as good as another in constructing motivation for a crime or random act. Have you formed a hypothesis, Watson?

Forget politics, partisan or otherwise. Negroponte and Goss point to a huge problem with the Bush administration: appointees who are point blank sub par. The United States spent many decades building up a federal workforce that we could be proud of. We spent many years solidifying public institutions that, despite flaws, could perform.

Recently, we’ve had two ideologue presidents (Reagan and GWB) who have seen fit to denigrate government and absolutely do not appreciated the necessity of having a professional federal workforce. They have bought into a lot of childish and ignorant prejudices about government and the sort of people who work in government.

You want good government? You’ve got to do like Microsoft and hire competent, experienced people who have had some successes in their field of expertise. How long are we going to indulge these anti-government ideologues in their child pique? When are we going to stop hiring foxes to guard the hen house?

Maybe they offered Goss a choice:

Either resign, or go hunting with Shotgun Dick on Memorial Day.

Now there is on offer Vito Corleone could be proud of.

One fact worth mentioning to provide additional context to the claim that this represents a personality clash between Goss and Negroponte.

Goss and Negroponte Goss and Negroponte had been friends for years and were fraternity brothers at Yale, where they graduated in 1960.

Trivia:
Interesting that President Bush's uncle was also a fraternity brother of Goss and Negroponte. Negroponte like Geogre W. Bush and George H.W. Bush was a member of Skull and Bones, while Goss was a member of the secret Society Book and Snake which he joined in the same year he joined the CIA.

Odd that the Bush administration loves to rail against Eastern Elitists given his penchant for hiring so many members of elitists secret societies from Yale to run the nations security aparatus as well as being a member himself.

Hookers for National Defense

How could our defense procurement systems function at all without girls for hire?

I like the claim by Bush when he fires Goss:
"We are on plan to hire bunches of more useless government bureaucrats for the CIA"

If you are being hired for the mere purpose of wasting taxpayer dollars, then sure, you might need the occasional hooker to make you forget.

Drudge is citing NY papers that, in fact, Goss was involved in hookers and poker, and that was the reason he was fired.

Also, there are reports that the scandal is so overwhelming that the FBI has decided to focus on Republicans who do not screw hookers, and just indict the rest.

Good old Cato:

"Bush’s disapproval rating among conservatives is 45%. That is not as high as the overall 66% disapproval score, but it is quite remarkable considering Bush is supposed to be—according to the media—the most conservative president since Ronald Reagan. Even more stunning is the whopping 65% negative score among polled conservatives for the Republican Congress. Close to a third of conservatives surveyed would be happier if the GOP lost control of Congress.

There are many reasons for the low poll numbers. But one of the primary drivers of conservative discontent with the GOP has got to be that the Republican Congress and President Bush are the biggest spenders since LBJ."

I mean, think, Bush is so bad that conservatives and libertarians would prefer Hillary!

little ole jim from red country: "Recently, we’ve had two ideologue presidents (Reagan and GWB) who have seen fit to denigrate government and absolutely do not appreciated the necessity of having a professional federal workforce....You want good government? You’ve got to do like Microsoft and hire competent, experienced people who have had some successes in their field of expertise."

Amen! Anyone who believes that "government is always the problem" has revealed that they should NEVER be put in a position of responsibility within government.

This is different from saying that governments are never a problem. Every organization, even government, has its problems from time to time (eg, Bushco), but the person put in charge of correcting the problem should be someone who believes that governments can be and should be well run, efficient, competent and accountable.

It's not like Cato and these other "conservatives" who've recently discovered their outrage didn't know all along that Bush was a big spender. It's just that they were willing to look the other way as long as humanly possible to keep those tax cuts coming.

There are more whores in Cato and other "libertarian" and "traditional conservative" circles than at the Watergate Hotel, apparently.

Is it just me, or is there something very creepy about having an active-duty general running a supposedly civilian agency like the CIA?

Are we under fucking martial law now and someone forgot to tell me?

In which Dusty has an arch-enemy, Buzzy,

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29574

Honestly, it's like Get Smart.

PTate,

You can make a better axiom, "Republicans are
always the problem."

There are more whores in Cato and other "libertarian" and "traditional conservative" circles than at the Watergate Hotel, apparently.

Can anyone give me directions from the Watergate Hotel to the Cato Institute? I'm here in the lobby.

Thanks.

i didn't mean to sound so harsh. i was just surprised that the roles of these collegiate semi-secret societies were not understood.

though the usa pretends that there is no aristocracy[no peerage as in england, for example], there is. the amerikan aristocracy, by and large, attended the same prep schools[phillips andover, philips exeter, groton, st marks, middlesex, st pauls, and a few others]. then they graduated from these breeding grounds of privilege and connections to attend harvard, yale, princeton as legacies. from a historical perspective, this rite of passage was the norm until the vietnam, post-vietnam era.

i have posted much about this at eschaton over the years. but for this post, suffice it to say that espionage became a vocation of many of these sons[and daughters] of privilege. it was considered a glamorous way for these children of privilege to serve the state. that is why during ww2, the ancestor of the CIA, the OSS, was thought to stand for Oh, So Social.

as to the clubs, secret societies, at harvard, yale, princeton. these were where the "swells" hid from any of the hoi polloi that were able to gain admission. as a rule, the entirety of the membership of these "clubs" would be legacies[i.e., their ancestors would have been members] and they would all be part of the aristrocratic "crowd" that amerika tries to hide from the populace.

just for a rooseveltian aside: teddy while at harvard was a member of the porcellian. his cousin franklin was black-balled by the porc. franklin had to settle for membership at the fly. that slight drove him crazy until his death.

jfk was a member of the spee.

when i was at harvard during the vietnam era, the clubs probably consisted of less than 5% -10% of the undergraduate student body. on the other hand, the membership of those clubs was comprised of virtually 100% of the amerikan aristocracy.

there were exceptions, however. if you knew how to tie a bow-tie, owned "le smoking", tails, and had attended a private school - even west of fitchburg - you might become "punched". and even elected. elected, and joining, you would learn things about connections. and you would encounter the children of "spooks".

i had such a "west of fitchburg" background, and though i was given the chance to spend some time in a club with the sons of spooks, i had observed spooks working under cover in amerikan industry while in high school.

now, please allow me to address the issue that someone raised about the military being involved in the management of the CIA. this is nothing new.

some of my library is warehoused, but when fdr tapped bill donovan to leave his law practice to facilitate the manipulations that would cause the usa to join the great war, donovan carried the rank of a reserve colonel in the army, i think. he carried that rank as he headed the precursor to the OSS, the OFFICE FOR THE COORDINATION OF INFORMATION[an agitprop entity].

i think that upon the upgrade to the Office of Strategic Services, donovan was given the rank of brigadier general.

to the best of my recollection, clandestine officers in that outfit enjoyed the perquisites of military rank.

after the war, when harry truman implemented the NATIONAL SECURITY ACT in the summer of 1947, creating the CIA, the original Directors of Central Intelligence were all military....

ADMIRAL SIDNEY SOUERS
GENERAL HOYT VANDENBERG
ADMIRAL ROSCOE HILLENKOETTER
GENERAL WALTER BEDELL SMITH[ike's G2 chief, by the way]

fascism in the united states of amerika is nothing invented by georgie bush.

it has a long history. too long for me to explain it to you here.

suffice it for me to tell you that clandestine service officers in the outfit are often seconded to the armed services, where they carry rank. ed lansdale carried the rank of a colonel in the usaf, for instance.

more to the point, at many embassies the military attache is a spook. he will wear a uniform with the rank of major, lt commander, commander, lt colonel depending upon what branch of the services he has been seconded to.

and it is just not the cia with a military orientation.

ponder upon the entirety of the amerikan intell services...NSA, DIA, ONI to name but a few.

perhaps you have read what lt gen[ret] bill odom, who once ran the NSA, has had to say about iraq.

and you should never forget Admiral Bobby Inman, who also ran the NSA.

i could say so much more. but the amerikan military has been running the intell services for decades.

and never forget the OFFICE OF RECONNAISSANCE. the satellite service. always run by the military.

since some of you seem to be just waking up, welcome to the brave new world.

i didn't mean to sound so harsh. i was just surprised that the roles of these collegiate semi-secret societies were not understood.

Posted by: albertchampion on May 6, 2006 at 9:25 PM | PERMALINK

Thank you so much fo the info'. I have never been part of this scene although I was propositioned to join the Masons at 21; the offer was only made once. Both in the UK and here they have managed to fly right under the radar for decades (centuries?, elsewhere?). Quite an achievement.

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