CIA Determines Scapegoat

With the announcement by a lawyer of fired CIA officer Mary McCarthy that she had neither the access to the information she is accused of leaking nor did she leak the information, one has to wonder if the CIA determined who to blame by looking at campaign contributions rather than evidence.

If true, then a statement by political hack turned CIA director, Porter Goss potentially passed along was dishonest or disinformation by alleging that McCarthy "knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information."

NBC reported that "a defense source tells NBC News that while McCarthy may have failed her polygraph on the issue of having unauthorized contacts with reporters, she did not fail the question about leaking information on the secret prison system."

The CIA says unauthorized speaking with the media is grounds for dismissal, McCarthy's lawyer said that was why she was terminated. However it appears Goss decided to go the extra mile in order and found a Democrat to blame for the leak. (Maybe the classified information McCarthy leaked is that the Bush administration is incompetent, although I'm pretty sure that information was declassified long ago.)

So at Goss's CIA outing a fellow agent is OK but telling the media about secret prisons is cause for finding a scapegoat. That must make CIA agents sleep well at night knowing that their job is secondary to the political whims of the Bush administration.

But with Bush's approval rating dropping to the freezing range and stories on the prisons winning Pulitzers, it may have become extremely important to find a scapegoat. McCarthy appeared to be a good one, donating money to Democrats and John Kerry. One has to wonder if the CIA's investigation was limited to running CIA employee names through Fundrace.org until they got a hit for someone contributing to Sen. John Kerry.

During his confirmation hearing, Sen. Jay Rockefeller questioned whether Goss would be politically objective after reviewing a series of attacks Goss made on Kerry on security issues yet didn't attack Republicans.

With Sen. Kerry getting high marks for his recent public statements lately and the American people abandoning Bush, perhaps this is Goss attempt to get back at Kerry and Democrats.

Or perhaps there is actually something to the CIA is claim. Unfortunately, the history of dishonesty the Bush Administration has built up leads one to question anything and everything they do.