The Sunday Times Gets It.....It's The Hookers!

Well, at least in Britain they get it, the Sunday Times tells us straight out that Goss is gone and it's because of the hookers.

ALL the ingredients for a spy thriller involving prostitutes, poker, a congressman called Randy and parties at the legendary Watergate complex may lie behind the sudden resignation of Porter Goss as director of the CIA last Friday.

The saga has already been named “Hookergate” and the CIA is buzzing with rumours that there is more to Goss’s departure than meets the eye.

The timing is certainly curious, coming hard on the heels of the CIA’s confirmation last week that Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the number three in the nation’s spy centre who was hand-picked by Goss, had attended poker games at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels in Washington with Brent Wilkes, a defence contractor and close boyhood friend.

Wilkes is under investigation for allegedly providing Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a disgraced Republican congressman, with prostitutes, limousines and free hotel suites.

Why do I have to get my news from these foreign sources? The Times suggests that Goss may have been less than forthcoming regarding his attendance at Wilkes poker parties.

A former senior CIA official said this weekend that he had been told by a trusted source inside the agency that Goss, 67, had attended one of the poker games. The CIA has denied it. “Goss has repeatedly denied being there, so if it were to come out that he was, he is finished,” the former official said.

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.

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”.

Johnson vouched for the integrity of Foggo and Goss but said: “Dusty was a big poker player, and it’s my understanding that Porter Goss was also there (at Wilkes’s parties) for poker. It’s going to be guilt by association.”

So....Goss promotes Foggo to a top level position in the CIA based on what? His association with Cunningham? Upon what is Cunningham's association with Foggo based? Cunningham's association with Wilkes?

The significance of “Hookergate” in Goss’s demise has yet to emerge, but CIA officers and congressmen are nervous about how far the allegations of sleaze will reach.

The Brits get it.