So why did Porter Goss resign?

According to Goss himself, his resignation is "just one of those mysteries". Maybe we need Dan Brown on the case. Or not. According to Laura Rozen, the verdict -- the conventional wisdom, that is -- is already in. Mainstream media outlets have more or less determined that "Goss was forced out yesterday after months of tension between him and John Negroponte over the CIA's reduced turf, and that President Bush lost confidence in Goss 'almost from the beginning'".

So that's that, right? No. Not unless you're happy accepting White House spin as truth. We need to know more.

Laura asks the questions the mainstream media aren't asking: "Does something about this story line that Goss suddenly left because of his long-standing tension with Negroponte, his fraternity brother from Yale, over Goss fighting to hold CIA turf seem a bit canned to you?... Does the way it happened resemble the slo-mo, warm and fuzzy way Andy Card and Scott McClellan were retired? Or does it rather have more in common with the swiftly announced departures of Claude Allen and David Safavian from their posts, a few days before we hear of federal investigations?"

As I said yesterday, there may have been tension between Goss and Negroponte and Bush may have been dissatisfied with Goss's performance. Negroponte in particular must have understood the extent of the damage Goss was doing to the CIA.

(He was Bush's man at the CIA. He was there to shake things up for Bush, not to provide him with impartial intelligence.)

But this wasn't handled like other high-level departures. Something happened to force Goss's hand, to push him out so suddenly. That something wasn't Bush or Negroponte. It was Kyle Foggo, a Goss appointment to the #3 position in the CIA and a key player in Hookergate currently under investigation by the CIA's inspector general. (Although Foggo has also announced his resignation. Quite the coincidence, eh?)

It may not be The New York Times, but the New York Daily News is looking beyond the conventional wisdom:

CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.

Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, could soon be indicted in a widening FBI investigation of the parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham, law enforcement sources said.

A CIA spokeswoman said Foggo went to the lavish weekly hospitality-suite parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels but "just for poker."

Intelligence and law enforcement sources said solid evidence had yet to emerge that Goss also went to the parties, but Goss and Foggo share a fondness for poker and expensive cigars, and the FBI investigation was continuing.

There's a lot more on this over at Memeorandum, where you can find reaction from around the blogosphere. Go have a look. Just don't forget the name Foggo. The truth is in there somewhere.