Posted by zeugma on April 25, 2006, at 20:00:39
Porter Goss is the CIA Director, appointed by President George Bush after former Director George Tenet resigned due to... well, there are any number of ways to complete that sentence, and yet civility forces me to refrain from doing so. There may be perfectly civil ways to construe the events that led to Mr. Tenet's resignation, but I can't think of any at the moment.
Mr. Goss published an article in my local paper in December titled "Loose Lips Sink Spies." How true. A spy becomes, to use the industry term, 'radioactive' once his or her identity os divulged. i.e., colleagues of said spy now bear the taint of association with outed individual in question, and CIA practice is to do damage assesments, whose results are necessarily secret (the damage has to stop somewhere!). The CIA, prior to Mr. Goss' ascension, conducted one on Valerie Plame's outing, and the results were deemed serious enough for the CIA to request, of the judicial branch of the U.S. Government, prosecution of highly placed members of the executive branch of the U.S. Government, a most unusual configuration of the balance of power the U.S. Constitution provides so well for us. An unprecedented one, too, I might add. President Richard Nixon, however [word deleted, I dislike adjectives as you will see] he may have been,restricted his illegal activities, in the main, to wiretapping the Watergate Hotel (I am glad I did not spend my honeymoon there),and did not to my knowledge divulge the identity of a covert member of the nation's intelligence service. President Clinton, no leaker but a [word omitted for civility's sake, omission ruins alliteration but I do not seek to offend anyone, even if I have to maim my text and your patience]did not spill state secrets, though he did run up the dry cleaner's bill (that is an impeachable offense in the U.S. by the way, though Democrats disagree, and while I think them wrong, I can see their point. The U.S. Constitution mentions dry cleaners only once, and reasonable people disagree on what they mean.).
anyway, I am so flabbergasted at this configuration- perhaps I am a poor student of history- I have a source in mind, extremely reputable, that provides information of keenest interest to Constitutional scholars and judicial minds, and poor students of history like me- but sadly I cannot link to it, because it will contain testimony that implicates... I cannot say, but it implicates someone of being a [word deleted]- it is a matter of public record, if you are a determined seeker of incivility, or simply someone who reads the papers (I would recommend the one in which Mr. Goss denounced leakers so vigorously, yet President Bush is, I hear, bringing a criminal case re some other leak that I cannot concern myself with now- President Bush, too, a vigorous denouncer of leakers!- Don't read the paper. What isn't a lie, is guaranteed to be a leak) you may learn the identity of this individual whose actions I strive to interpret charitably. Regrettably I am unable to do so at the moment, so I will move on to my point.
Mr. Goss is no hypocrite. He has fired a CIA analyst, Mary McCarthy, allegedly for leaking- I cannot say more because
[quoted from AP, 4/25/06]
<<
It is not yet clear precisely what McCarthy did that led to the firing. In a statement to CIA employees, Goss said that "a CIA officer has acknowledged having unauthorized discussions with the media, in which the officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information."Last week, government officials indicated McCarthy was involved in providing information to reporters that included material used in The Washington Post's award-winning report on a covert network of CIA [word omitted, not for civility's sake, but because it is just not a nice word to to use during a dinner conversation. I have found this out through bitter experience, and you will appreciate my consideration if you are reading this over dinner. Those AP correpsondents! Must they use the English language as they found it? Why should they not shoot holes in words, as I am so kindly doing, to make the news more palatable to their audience?]. Allegations of a [adjective deleted, I think adjectives are a criminal class of word myself- let the facts speak for themselves, I say! You will perhaps drain the color from your writings, but you will never be made a pariah for leaving this sad class of words far behind when discussing politics]-style [I shoot a hole in yet another word, a Russian borrowing in fact, and one that does not help the digestion I assure you] in Eastern Europe and other facilities sparked international condemnation and investigations.]]>>
One can see that Mr. Goss is no hypocrite.
And more:
<<Goss and others have said leaks have done dramatic damage to U.S. relationships with allies. He told Congress in February that his counterparts ask: "Mr. Goss, can't you Americans keep a secret?"
But McCarthy's attorney, Ty Cobb, defends her actions and says she was not the source for the Post story. "She did not leak any classified information, and she did not have access to the information apparently attributed to her by some government officials," Cobb said.>>>
No comment on this defense tactic, a common one in any case. I do not refer you to any links, because the ones i have visited say... well, finish your dinner and thank me later. I should add that the story Mr. Cobb is referring to won a Pulitzer Prize.
I resume:<<<
Cobb said she announced her retirement from the CIA and hoped to practice public service law, working on adoptions.The accusation of media contacts, however, has tainted a career that ended in the CIA inspector general's office, where her work included investigations into allegations of agency involvement in [perfectly civil word, but I do not recommend the video] at Iraqi [yet another word, a perfectly reputable one- unless they appear in an article about leaks, in which case they are rather upsetting].
The National Whistleblower Center says McCarthy could have a strong case to contest her firing. House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., sees her actions differently.
"This person in the CIA thought that they were above the law," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "They have put America at risk. They have put our troops on the front lines at risk."
[Is it uncivil of me to quibble over Mr. Hoekstra's grammar? I was taught at school that singular subjects do not become plural, ie. 'this person' cannot be pronominalized 'they.' Unless Mr. Hoekstra (interesting name btw) has others in mind?? who could those POSSIBLY be??? If I say more I will leak something!]
>>>I, like Mr. Goss, loathe leakers, and wish them to find employment suitable to their characters (in Ms. McCarthy's case, public service law-? That assumes, of course, that she is blameless, since I concur with Mr. Goss (and Mr. Hoekstra) that leakers put numerous troops at risk while engaged in "public service." ). I do not have Mr. Goss' phone number, otherwise I would call Mr. Goss myself and let him know of some other leakers that have come to my attention. My local paper contains the names of enough leaky faucets to keep Mr. Nixon's plumbers busy for years.
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:637033
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060417/msgs/637033.html