Reply #176: The Official Speculation Sub-thread

[sofa king]

Kevin Drum notes the following:

* Laura Rozen #1: Dana Priest is on MSNBC right now saying we'll have to wait for tomorrow's paper to find out why he resigned. The Post must have called him for comment on a story running tomorrow about his involvement with Brent Wilkes.

* Laura Rozen #2: I hear that when Porter Goss went to meet with Negroponte today, he didn't know he was going to be leaving the job. And that it would have been the President's decision, not Negroponte's. And that this may have to do with how Goss handled a management issue concerning Foggo.

* Justin Rood: I've heard it a bit more bluntly: Goss was told to fire Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, his troublesome Executive Director, and Goss refused. That's what we're hearing now from knowledgeable sources. But there's a lot of contradictory information.

* 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. Seems more likely to me that there was some kind of showdown between Goss and Negroponte and Negroponte said, "Either he goes or I go," and there Goss went.

* Time magazine: The sudden and unexpected resignation of Porter Goss as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on Friday highlights a long bureaucratic battle that's been going on behind the scenes in Washington. Ever since John Negroponte was appointed Director of National Intelligence a year ago and given the task of coordinating the nation's myriad spy agencies, he has been diluting the power and prestige of the CIA....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.

An unnamed source close to me suggested to me that I keep an eye out for "a crippled sheep shackled in a basement."

The returned soul of Raymond Chandler put it to me this way: "One of Goss' boys got too close to Rumsfeld, made him look like a sucker in broad daylight. Everyone knows it's not Goss' fault, but it's his responsibility, see? So maybe the Don overreacts a little and puts the hit on Goss. Nobody can do nuthin' but looks the other way and whistle, 'cause the Don's got the juice and Goss is pushing up daisies--or might as well be."

Please post other notable speculation here.