Porter Goss abruptly resigned (Friday) amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, could soon be indicted in a widening FBI investigation of the parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham, law enforcement sources said.
A CIA spokeswoman said Foggo went to the lavish weekly hospitality-suite parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels but "just for poker."
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.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA operative and a Bush administration critic, said Goss "had a relationship with Dusty and with Brent Wilkes that's now coming under greater scrutiny."
Most of the rest of the corporate media is tap-dancing around the salacious allegations, so we'll see if they intend to report the full story or gloss over it a la Jeff Gannon.
Why do you suppose prostitutes -- even male ones in the White House press corps -- don't seem to find any media traction in the new millenium? How is that "a blue dress and some DNA" -- as Goss indicated would be enough to launch an investigation (but not the felonious leaking of an undercover CIA agent to the press) -- could have attracted so much outrage just ten years ago? Were we -- well, the Republicans, anyway -- really that prudish then?
Is this just points on the scoreboard, or losing one's "mojo", as Josh Bolten pointed out? Or is it something more, such as the decline of our democratic republic?
How can it be that the man who is on the front line for our nation's security is so ethically compromised and the news is so slow to come out?
But then, how is it that a President who lied about WMDs in Iraq is joined in laughter by the press corps at their annual dinner when he portrays himself looking under his Oval Office desk for said weapons, but if a comedian likens his administration to the Hindenburg it's "not funny"?
And does this have anything remotely to do with the fact that the company that builds the machines that process our ATM transactions with an accurate receipt every single time cannot do the same for our ballots? And nobody reports the story?
Is our media just as broken and corrupt as the ruling party? You think they'll ever wake up and start doing their jobs and you know, save democracy and maybe the Constitutiton?
Or is it too late already?
