Kennedy v. Goss, Day Two...

[WilliamPitt]

A quick scan of all the major newspapers:

http://www.nytimes.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

http://www.latimes.com/

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

...shows three below-the-fold Kennedy car-crash stories. There's one on the Post's page, because it is a DC story. There's another on the Boston Globe's page, because he's a Kennedy and so it is a Boston story. The Guardian has one because the Brits love a good titliating famous-person-shamed story perhaps even more than we do. There isn't a single story on the NY Times page that I can spot.

The Goss story? At the top of all, banner headlines, kleig lights across the sky.

So. One story will be a waste receptacle for parakeet poop by tomorrow, and the other will keep a-runnin' for days to come...especially if the Daily News is right about Foggo resigning next week in lieu of an indictment in the Cunningham-Watergate-hookers-and-bribes-holy-crap-the-Watergate-is-back scandal.

I've been banging the phones and reading everything, by the way, and my sense is that if Goss is, in fact, involved in the Cunningham scandal, it isn't in a way that anyone knows about definitively. He may well have quit because one of his guys is caught up in the thing, and the guilt-by-association issue was too much to manage. There is also Negroponte's power play, and the simple fact that Goss was a piss-poor CIA Director who put loyalty to Bush above picayune issues like, oh, say, national defense.

The proof will be in whatever pudding gets blended from the Foggo thing. If Goss is in this, Foggo will sell him out to stave off massive prison time.

Stay tuned.

[bluestateguy]

1. The Kennedy "story" will be gone by Monday

It has no legs. Nobody was hurt or killed.

[robbedvoter]

2. NYC tabloids - All Kennedy all thetime...

Although The Daily news...has a good 6th story
http://www.nydailynews.com/

[iconoclastic cat]

3. BTW, Will, what do you make of the "it was a GAY hooker ring" idea?

I highly recommend these two dKos threads:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/5/194558/7271

It's about GAY hookers, STUPID!

(snip)

Anyway, Chris Baker was clearly Wilkes' go-to guy for the 'hospitality suites' notwithstanding the fact that Baker's lawyer told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Baker was "never in attendance in any party where any women were being used for prostitution purposes." And, as we discussed late Tuesday, there's something pretty fishy about the mega-contracts Baker's company managed to land from the Department of Homeland Security.

Did anyone think to ask whether Baker had been in attendance in any party where any men were being used for prostitution puroses. They used to call this kind of parsing Clintonian.

And this:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/19/204254/937

Gay facts and fantasies in Propagannon research

(snip)

Blackmail is a subtle art and is often used by those nearest to us. I'm not talking about "emotional" blackmail in the pop psychology sense but something more nuanced. In a secretive culture, like the gay underworld - that I wish could finally disappear altogether - blackmail isn't as crass as open exhortion, the threats are often unspoken. In fact, pressure can be applied in even apparently friendly ways as lovers, ex-lovers, or friends yield simply to accommodate and protect everyone.

Three days ago I spoke with a contemporary of mine, who'd been a regular at CBGB's and places like the 9th Circle who had become a staunch Republican. Although he lives in DC we met in one of the old 70s landmarks we'd each known 30 years ago as he was visiting New York for a few days. (He was keen to tell me about the Constitution Ball he attended this year.) When I asked him just what all this was about, all these secret gays - the whole pack of them - he gave me one of those looks that says "Girl, this says it all" and said, in a whispered tone, "Karl Rove."

He refused to elaborate. As he was off-the-record I'll keep his name off the main dairy for the moment until I speak with him again. I don't think he's near as well connected as he'd like to be but I take it - on face value - as a fair estimate of the gossip current in DC `s gay watering holes.

[WilliamPitt]

5. No idea

To be honest, I lost the hook on Gannon when the story surrounding him blew up into a blizzard of nonsense about missing kids and snuff films with Hunter Thompson at the Bohemian Grove. Frankly, that story suffered the same fate as all the legitimate theories about 9/11; to wit, it became buried by super-stretched innuendo offered by people who think nebulous internet connections made with suppositions instead of fact actually make a substantiated story.

I will get really annoyed if that same cadre storms into this story with those theories, because it will annihilate the guts of it. I openly prepare to be proven wrong, but to be perfectly honestg, the Gannon folks did not show me much of anything the last time his name came up, and I have no faith in their ability to do anything more than tear up another good story this time around.

We'll see.

[BR_Parkway]

6. That's only a portion of the "gay angle" - check this out for some

of the rest of it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2609676&mesg_id=2609676

[Cooley Hurd]

4. Larry Johnson's sources say that Goss is on the periphery of Hookergate...

...but is being drawn into the vortex by Foggo's involvement.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29574

<snip>
Speculation in the blogosphere suggested that Porter Goss selected Foggo because of his ties to Wilkes and may be implicated in the sexscapades. I'm told by a friend who used to work at the Agency that Goss, on this charge is clean. In fact, Goss may be a victim, guilty only of selecting some lousy staff.

A former CIA buddy tells me that Porter's main problem, however, is a key staffer who is linked to both Brent Wilkes and the CIA's Executive Director, Dusty Foggo. My friend also said that it is highly likely that the Goss staffer did participate in the hooker extravaganza. Goss, politician that he is, probably recognized that even though he did not participate in the sexual escapades and poker games, his staffer's participation created a huge problem for him that would be difficult to escape.
</snip>

Personally, I doubt that his VERY abrupt departure was due to his lousy choice of personnel.

[WilliamPitt]

7. Johnson has great sources

and is someone I listen to. You are correct, however, about how this went down. They blasted him out the front door, and in the process destroyed a perfectly good Kennedy story that would have given them cover for at least a few days. It doesn't scan.

But if you ask yourself how much power Negroponte actually has, and if your answer is "a lot, with more to come," then this kind of chop-down does make sense.

[omega minimo]

8. The elephant in the room:

"But if you ask yourself how much power Negroponte actually has, and if your answer is "a lot, with more to come," then this kind of chop-down does make sense."

[BeatleBoot]

9. What's your take on: "Goss for Senator rather than Katherine Harris" ?

To me, it sounds like GOP spin to chill out the base on the Hooker scandal.

[WilliamPitt]

10. Yeah, that's nonsense

If this is simply as innocent as Goss being peripherally involved with the Cunningham thing, it will still prove to be too much of a millstone for him to run. That GOP race in Florida is in total disarray now, thanks entirely to Ms. Harris, and the introduction of Goss would only make it worse.

No, he's going home to retire.