Counter-intelligence

The Senate has begun the process of anointing Representative Porter Goss as Bush's choice for director of the CIA. If the Sentate has any intelligence, it will defy Bush and deny Goss the appointment. Besides confessing to Michael Moore's film crew that he would be unsuited for work with today's CIA (much less directing it), Mr. Goss: 1) is a Florida Republican who has already played election-year politics by mischaracterizing the intelligence record of Senator John Kerry, 2) has a record in Congress that is more protective of than probing about the CIA's performance, 3) warned this week that the CIA would need more than five years to repair its flaws (raising the question of why, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he hasn't championed such reform in the three years since 9/11), and 4) originally was an opponent of the 9/11 commission and now is a key player in the dysfunctional Congressional oversight that the panel found to be a critical factor in the nation's intelligence failures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/opinion/16thu1.html?th