1 George down, 1 to go

CIA director George Tenet resigned his post late Thursday, in time for the weekend "take out the trash" Friday bad news dumping of the Bush administration. Tenet claims it was for "personal reasons" which one blogger really goes to town with this Washingtonian cop-out. So while Bush is in Italy visiting the pope to get more Catholic voters, the other George fell on his sword.

The question is, why did it take so long? [Slate's Chris Suellentrop has also wondered this for a long time] Why wasn't this man fired on say September 12, 2001? Or right after the 6th month of no WMDs? Why now, when it is painfully obvious he did a horrible job, presiding over two of the Agencies biggest intelligence blunders in history. And if you count Chalabi (which I don't blame him for) there's three.

Douglas Jehl of the New York Times thinks that the 700-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on all the failings of Tenet's CIA is what prompted Georgie to high tail out of there. The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler hints that Tenet is going to be the Administration's scape goat for Iraq and 9/11.

If Bush and his pals decide to do that, I just can't wait for the 60 minutes interview and series of articles on what he told Bush and Bush told him back. There has to be a reason, other than how cool it is to know secret stuff, that George Tenet stayed on all this time. He must have a couple Aces up his sleeve. Some public comments on this event are semi-revealing.

Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner said, "I'm very surprised. I certainly thought that the president was not going to acknowledge that there were problems in his own inner circle. I certainly thought that Tenet, being a very loyal-type of civil servant, would not walk out on the president in the middle of an election campaign. I think the president feels he's in enough trouble that he's got to begin to cast some of the blame for the morass that we are in in Iraq on to somebody else and this was one subtle way to do it."

Fred Kaplan of Slate makes a point few have noticed: "So, what would happen if the 9/11 commission or any of the other boards of inquiry dealing with the various intelligence scandals were to re-call Private Citizen Tenet to testify? Would he suddenly remember meetings and conversations that had earlier slipped his mind? Years ago, Tenet worked as a staff member for Sen. John Heinz, whose widow is now married to John Kerry. Do they keep in touch? (Just asking.)" Will Saletan coins the phrase "Informer Without Results" for Tenet.

AP has this: "A year and a half before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a British Muslim [named Niaz Khantold] the FBI that he was trained to be a hijacker for Osama bin Laden and was in the United States to carry out attacks, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday"

So all it all, I am looking forward to the fall of Bushism and the end of this charade of his "sucessful" War on Terror and "leadership" after 9/11.