Porter Goss Quotes

See {620027} for an example of Feith’s logic.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910

The scandals of the past of CIA lies to Congress and the President, mistakes they had made, and a raft of illegal activities, had eroded support for the agency. We still had the NSA and the Military Intelligence Agencies which had not been involved in the CIA scandals.

1st Earl of Oxford. While clearly a gross overgeneralization, the Austrian leadership were in the process of making some very stupid policy decisions that led to WW I and the destruction and breakup of their empire.

Taft was not unintelligent. He was actually quite bright which is one of the reasons that TR selected him as VP and supported Taft for President in 1908. Taft did have an aversion to confrontation and political battle, and he was unable deal with the conservatives of his Party to maintain some independence and continue the TR progressive reforms. Roosevelt, who had been a very close friend of Taft, was disillusioned with the Taft Presidency and ran against him in the 1912 Republican Primary.

1st Duke of Wellington

Train was an ardent supporter of Women’s Suffrage; however, he did not favor negro suffrage until they were sufficiently educated. He was also a Democrat. This alienated Garrison and other leading abolitionists. However Train was such an effective speaker for women’s rights that Anthony and her colleagues kept traveling with him on the lecture circuit. He was the one, for example, that initiated the creation of their periodical, Revolution.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910

Ex HEW Secretary John Gardner, the founder of the citizens' lobby, Common Cause, was testifying before Hays' committee: Gardner, considered an excellent Secretary by most, was a reformer who was making some suggestions not to Hays’ liking. This quote was Hays’ reposponse to Gardner. Hays was not only a bully but his lack of tact caused the State Departmemt much trouble. See {622348}.

Phelps was a Copperhead Democrat who was a virulent racist, an enemy of Lincoln and supported McClellan against Lincoln in 1864. His extreme disrespect for the President and his racism was not appreciated in Vermont, and Phelps not only failed to help McClellan but destroyed his own credibility in his home state of Vermont. Phelps had been practicing law in New York City where there was a large Copperhead, racist and anti-Lincoln part of the popullation.

Some of the Right Wing attacks in President Obama were without any foundation of facts. All presidents have to work extremely hard, and if they were not “workaholics” they could not even get nominated for the post. Many critics saw a racist element in this attack. In Sununu’s youth there was a slander by which racists used to refer to Blacks as “lazy and shiftless”. Obama was the first Black President and whereas that demonstrated that the nation had gotten past much of its racism, some still remained and this might have been a vestige of it.

It is noteworthy that a U. S. President had such a harsh evaluation of our major intelligence agency. Even more important in this case is that this President justified his 2003 decision to invade Iraq and start the war on the intelligence he claimed was provided to him by the CIA that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This quotation and the President’s view was not public at the time. I all fairness to the CIA staff, many of them had provided a number of caveats and warnings about the unreliability of the information. However, the CIA Director, George Tenant, advised Bush in a way that the caveats were sublimated. See {633093} for more detail.

Gates was then a mid-level functionary at the CIA. His ability to tell the truth to powerful people got him promoted and he eventually became director himself as well as the Secretary of Defense. The Department of Agriculture at the time was generally known as a very bureaucratic organization.