contrapositive

DEPT. OF EXEGESIS Why did Porter Goss leave the CIA? I think it's because he's implicated--at least tangentially--in the burgeoning corruption, government contracts and hookers scandal.

But that's just a hunch.

What is clear now--and was clear by Monday night: Even if Goss had no role in the scandal, Goss appointee and CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo (make that former Executive Director) is up to his ears in it.

By late Monday it was common knowledge that Foggo was under investigation by the FBI and the CIA's Inspector General. And it had been reported that Foggo may soon be indicted.

And yet here's how The New York Times portrays his ouster in Tuesday's piece on the firings and hirings at the CIA:

In another sign that the White House was trying to make the change in C.I.A. leadership politically palatable to Congress, the agency's No. 3 official, Kyle Foggo, told colleagues in an e-mail message on Monday that he, too, was stepping down.

Have Elisabeth Bumiller and Carl Hulse been taking silly pills? Do they really believe that Foggo was let go to please Congress rather than to insulate the administration politically?

Bumiller and Hulse just aren't stupid enough to believe the White House line here. They know Foggo is at the center of a scandal, and that he may well be indicted for his role. And yet they parrot the administration's "bureaucratic shuffling" narrative all the same; as if there job wasn't, instead, to puncture just this type of spin.

Why are New York Times reporters doing Tony Snow's dirty work for him?