All That’s Left Is Our Friendship

by digby

I have had a few conversations and email exchanges over the past few months in which we all sort wondered whether it was such a good idea for Bush and Cheney to be so publicly derisive of the CIA. Calling them incompetent and lazy and (*gasp*) liberal just seemed like stupid thing to do with an agency filled with spies.

Then I read this today, from Tim Grieve in Salon and I just have to wonder…

The White House said Monday that it intends to hire as the No. 2 man at the CIA a former agency official who quit in 2004 in a dispute with Porter Goss. As admissions of mistakes go, this is a pretty big one — even if no one at the White House will actually admit it.

Stephen Kappes, the CIA’s deputy director for operations, resigned from the agency in November 2004 after Patrick Murray — a former Hill staffer who was serving as Goss’ chief of staff at the CIA — ordered him to fire his deputy, Michael Sulick. As the Washington Post reported at the time, Murray’s order to Kappes came after Sulick had confronted Murray about a threat Murray had made to another agency official.

The threat? That the agency official would be held responsible if anything from the personnel file of the “newly appointed executive director” made it into the media. And the “newly appointed executive director”? He wasn’t identified in the Post’s account back in 2004, but we all know his name now: Dusty Foggo, who resigned from the CIA yesterday amid a corruption probe.

[…]

So where are we today? Goss is gone. Murray is presumably gone. Foggo is gone. And the White House is trumpeting the fact that Kappes will be coming back. “The move was seen as a direct repudiation of Goss’ leadership and as an olive branch to CIA veterans disaffected by his 18-month tenure,” the Post says this morning.

Holding out an “olive branch”? From here, it looks more like “falling on your sword.” The White House may indeed be interested in repudiating Goss, but let’s not forget who forced his brand of “leadership” on the CIA in the first place.

Just what happened to make the white house change it’s approach on this when it refuses to do the kind of things that might boost them in the polls and help their guys win in the fall is anybody’s guess. But you have to wonder if it went something like this:

GEARY

I didn’t do anything.

TOM

It’s okay. You’re very lucky — my brother FREDO operates this place, he was called before anyone. If this had happened someplace else, we couldn’t’ve helped you..

GEARY

I — when I woke up, I was on the floor — and I don’t know how it happened.

TOM

You can’t remember?

GEARY

I passed out.

[He stands up and moves over the bed where we see a bloody dead girl.]

I — I’ll fix it.

[He unties the girl’s hand from the bed post.]

Just a game.

[He takes a towel and begins to wipe up the blood that is all over her. He looks at the towel and wipes off his hands.]

Jesus, Jesus.

[He begins to cry. As he does, TOM looks over at NERI who is wiping his hands in the bathroom.]

Jesus, God — Oh, God. I don’t know — and I can’t understand — why I can’t remember.

TOM

You don’t have to remember — just do as I say. We’re putting a call into your office — explain that you’ll be there tomorrow afternoon — you decided to spend the night at Michael Corleone’s house in Tahoe — as his guest.

GEARY

I do remember that she was laughing…we’d done it before — and I know that I couldn’t’ve hurt — that girl

TOM

This girl has no family — nobody knows that she worked here. It’ll be as if she never existed. All that’s left is our friendship.

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