NY DAILY NEWS SAYS GOSS RESIGNATION ALL ABOUT HOOKERGATE

We'll have to see how this plays out, but one thing is for sure -- this administration has demonstrated its "disarray" (as George Will characterized it on This Week) once more. In the midst of war, Bush is once again shaking up our most important human intel agency. The culture of cronyism, partisan purity and antagonistic rhetoric Bush has fostered has not improved the performance of any of the fully functioning agencies and institutions that Bill Clinton left behind, but nearly destroyed them. Replacing one administration toady with another isn't fooling anybody anymore.

CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.
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Intelligence and law enforcement sources said solid evidence had yet to emerge that Goss also went to the parties, but Goss and Foggo share a fondness for poker and expensive cigars, and the FBI investigation was continuing.
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Goss' inability to handle the allegations swirling around Foggo prompted John Negroponte, the director of National Intelligence, who oversees all of the nation's spy agencies, to press for the CIA chief's ouster, the senior official said. The official said Goss is not an FBI target but "there is an impending indictment" of Foggo for steering defense contracts to his poker buddies.
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Negroponte "apparently had no confidence" in Goss, and Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was also "very alarmed by problems at the CIA," said a congressional source involved in oversight of U.S. spy agencies.

"Supposedly the \[Cunningham\] scandal was the last straw," the source said. "This administration may be on the verge of a major scandal."

Tags: Porter Goss, Hookergate