Today, The Washington Post's David Ignatius, writes:
"The most dangerous moment in any transition is halfway through, when the old structure is badly weakened but the new one isn't yet strong enough to carry the load. That's where the Bush administration stands in its incomplete effort to restructure the intelligence community.
The intelligence reshuffle was the product of two warring impulses that have been apparent in this administration's foreign policy from the start -- a "realist" support for strong, independent spy agencies and a "neoconservative" mistrust, bordering on outright hatred, of the CIA as a supposed obstacle to the president's goals.
The intelligence-reform impulse led President Bush, after some foot-dragging, to back the recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission by creating a director of national intelligence to oversee the nation's 15 spy agencies and appointing veteran diplomat John Negroponte to fill the post. But before the new structure was in place, the president tapped Republican Rep. Porter Goss as director of the CIA. Goss was accompanied by a team of right-wing congressional staffers, quickly dubbed the "Gosslings" at Langley, who set out to cuff the CIA's headstrong Directorate of Operations into line."
I had to laugh at "The Gosslings" remark. But Ignatius tells us what I said here that Porter and Negroponte are shaking up the place,and many of the old dead weights are flocking to out the door. Evidently, they are also crying to the media about how Goss is screwing up the place and sending everyone's moral into the toilet.
"I'm told that Goss has now gotten warnings from the White House that he should clip the wings of the head Gossling, his chief of staff, Patrick Murray. Goss should heed that advice before even more officers quit in disgust at the political meddling. And Goss himself may be part of the problem. His laid-back style (liaison meetings with foreign intelligence services on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, please) is said to have led Negroponte to tell one colleague that Goss was still working a "congressional schedule."
As I was fond of saying during my military years, "That's a big Negatory!" Mr. Goss needs to continue sweeping that broom until all the 'dirt' is gone, and the old 'baggage' removed.
As he does you will see much more 'activity' by the MSM critcising Goss, Negroponte and their efforts, but remember, the MSM is every bit as much of the "old establishment" as the decrepted old spooks who are crying foul now.
Filed under: judith miller valerie plame karl rove Valerie Plame PlameGate john hannah
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