Staff Shake-Ups

With the recent resignation of Porter Goss as head of the CIA, I feel that I must write something about the White House's new gameplan. I don't believe for a minute that either of these men resigned without any push from the top. George W. Bush seems to think that a couple new faces in the area might help his party not do so bad in the fall elections. I personally don't see how he thinks this will help him either way, because in recent months, Republicans have been interfering with his plans almost more than Democrats. But his lying press secretary was replaced with a Fox News analyst, and it looks like Porter Goss is going to be replaced with one of the masterminds of the warrant-less wire taps, General Hayden (the other mastermind being W himself). This was his chance to show the country that he's trying to make changes for the better. What the hell is he thinking?

I'm going to go in chronological order, starting with the resignation of Mr. McClellan. The news clip I remember had Bush and McC. on the White House lawn, and Bush told the press that McC. was resigning because his job was high-stress ("You all are hard to deal with") and he needed a break. Well duh! If you're feeding the press what they know to be lies day in and day out, they catch on pretty soon, and then your days of peace are over. Those press people can be vicious when you lie to them and America (Fox isn't included in this group). I don't doubt McC. got pretty stressed out in the four years or so he had the job. Of course, a fellow liberal wondered if he was resigning because his conscience couldn't take it anymore... that option was thrown out pretty quick. I don't even see why this position was the first to be given a new face, except that maybe the big guns thought that Scott McClellan was no longer trusted by the American people (they'd be right on that, partly). A new mouth spewing White House lies isn't going to change anything, especially now that the guy's from Fox.

On to Mr. Goss. The man brought in to clean house, and make the CIA a potent weapon again. Well, he cleaned house alright, anybody who didn't support and believe in the war was fired or resigned in protest. Needless to say, a kind of brain drain ensued, and left the CIA flopping around like a fish out of water, except getting less accomplished. This was a guy that needed to go, and the CIA still needs reform, but the general is the wrong person to do it. New allegations are out this week that the wire tapping was even more out of control than we knew. Is this the kind of person we want in control of any agency?

More importantly, at a time when Sec. Rumsfeld is increasing the reach of the military, should we really have a general in charge of the civilian intelligence gathering agency? I have nothing against regular soldiers, but at the tip top (Rumsfeld), the military has overstepped its boundaries time and again. What will happen when the military has some iffy intel, and somebody asks the CIA to verify it? It would be like going to a doctor for a second opinion on something, and then going to another doctor who is the first guy's best friend. Can you really trust the second opinion?