Shafer On The Media On The CIA Brawl With Goss

Jack Shafer is wildly insightful:

Spy vs. Spy
The spooks play the press.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004, at 9:20 PM PT

When Washington bureaucrats collide, the best seat in the house is often wherever you sit to read your daily newspaper. Bureaucrats tend to battle one another in the press, leaking and counter-leaking and counter-counter-leaking damaging information about one another.

The latest such rumble pits the CIA's old guard against its new director, Porter J. Goss, appointed by President George W. Bush two months ago with orders to revamp the agency. Which side is wearing the white hats and which the black depends on which newspaper you read—or how you read it. If you're a Bush supporter, you think Goss is the hero. You agree with him that the CIA is "dysfunctional," incompetent, responsible for intelligence failures, and needs a shake-up. If you're a Democrat, you believe the stories wafting out of the agency about Bush's dark plans to further politicize it, to punish and purge its dissenting voices.

...Goss, on the other hand, entered this game with a handicap. He disdains the press, as all Bushies do, and part of what he hates about the old guard is that they leak to the press. So, he's not one to battle his bureaucratic foes by counter-leaking in the newspapers.

But that doesn't mean Goss is above dispatching a proxy to fight for him. Press darling Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., changed the shape of the coverage by arguing the Empire's point of view on the Sunday, Nov. 14, edition of ABC News' This Week. "This agency needs to be reformed," McCain said. "[Goss] is being savaged by these people that want the status quo. And the status quo is not satisfactory."

...Thanks to McCain's entry into the game, the major dailies are now playing the chaos pretty much down the "he said/she said" middle...

When reading press accounts of bureaucratic battles, it pays to remember that most reporters tend to dance with the source that brung 'em. All other things being equal, if the Daily Bugle scores a scoop one day about how the FBI undermined the CIA in some interagency misadventure, then the next day's Morning Gazette will probably detail how it was actually the CIA that screwed over the FBI. If the coverage continues in this predictably partisan fashion, it's a safe bet that the CIA is feeding the Bugle and the FBI is feeding the Gazette—and that both papers have become captives of their sources. 

Comments

[antiphone]

Apparently there are some at the C.I.A. who don’t want to gang bang for the Republican party. Can you blame them?

[Cecil Turner]

Nope, don't blame 'em at all. But when they decide to leak to reporters, they're at best being partisan, and likely breaking the law. It's totally unprofessional behavior in an intelligence agency, and I have zero sympathy for 'em when they get fired for it.

The fact that the vast majority of the leaks are critical of Goss is a pretty good indicator he's twisting the right tails. Faster, please.

[The Kid]

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Left feared the CIA and the FBI.

The Peanut Farmer and a sailor defanged what was effective in the CIA by getting rid of the guys who knew how to be nasty, crafty, and wise, and someone left the barn door open for the KGB. As for the FBI, looks like their focus on organized crime (can we say “Mafia”?) didn’t upset many folks, nor did their attention to the far-right whackos. But they got pretty soft and PC too.

Today nobody’s afraid of the CIA or the FBI.

I agree with Cecil – faster.

[Forbes]

Funny how partisans complained that the CIA didn't have perfect information (not that that's possible) regarding a whole host of issues--9/11, terrorism, bin Laden, Iraq, WMDs. Now the process of addressing those issues becomes gang banging for Republicans. That's not even credible.

Keep at it, antiphone, and not only will no one vote for Democrats, but no one will even listen to your silly opinions. A list of complaints is not an action plan.

Faster, please.

[antiphone]

the process of addressing those issues

Here’s what http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fedagencies/july-dec04/cia_11-15.html”>Jane Harman said about that.

“I think Porter Goss has every right as the president's nominee and someone confirmed overwhelmingly by the Senate to change the agency. And I might like those changes or I might not, but he has a right to make them.

It's the way he's making them that concerns me. It's also where he's making them. The directorate of operations, which is the spy service of the CIA, is not the crowd that wrote the national intelligence estimate on Iraq that was wrong, and it's not the crowd that lost the clues leading up to 9/11, either.
It's the crowd that has people in the field, with whom I visited last week, who are excellent, and who are our eyes and ears in the Middle East..."

I would at least trust her to know where changes are being made.

[BurbankErnie]

It's the crowd that has people in the field, with whom I visited last week, who are excellent, and who are our eyes and ears in the Middle East..."

Excuse me, but our eyes and ears in the Middle East are pretty much non existant thanks to our PC Policy of spying. That is exactly why the shuffle. And if the people Jane visited are excellent, pardon my partisan ways, but the sooner they go the better.

PLEASE.... FASTER!!!

[antiphone]

Here’s a pop quiz for all the Porter Goss group-thinkers.

Michael V. Kostiw, chosen by CIA Director Porter J. Goss to be the agency's new executive director, resigned under pressure from the CIA more than 20 years ago, according to past and current agency officials....

Do you know why? Faster please!

[Cecil Turner]

"Do you know why?"

Anyone who's been paying attention will immediately identify the infamous "pound of bacon" incident (wherein, for those who haven't, "past and current agency officials" leaked information from Kostiw's personnel file to discredit the choice, which resulted in him being withdrawn from consideration for the executive director position). Which of course spawned the dustup between Murray, Kappes, Sulick, and an unnamed "associate deputy director of counterintelligence," which ended with Kappes's and Sulick's resignations (covered in creditable detail by our estimable host here), the gist of which was:

Referring to previous media leaks regarding personnel, he said that if anything in the newly appointed executive director's personnel file made it into the media, the counterintelligence official "would be held responsible," according to one agency official and two former colleagues with knowledge of the conversation. [emphasis added]

Now that we're all up to speed, I'm having a hard time seeing your point. Kostiw's 20-year-old shoplifting incident, especially devoid of context, isn't very revealing. Is he kleptomanic, was he practicing tradecraft, or did he crack under pressure? Obviously each (and subsequent events) would have vastly different implications for his suitability for current CIA positions. However, the recent leaking provides very pertinent information about the leakers--especially the ones working in counterintelligence. Whatever their qualifications, they're obviously part of the problem, and spending considerable effort trying to obstruct solutions.

"Faster please!"

Amen, brother. Testify!