Goss brings more politics to CIA than we had feared

Two months ago, we expressed misgivings about Porter Goss taking over the reins of the Central Intelligence Agency.
We noted that job demands a nonpartisan approach. Unless and until a new post of intelligence czar is created as part of a reorganization of the nation's intelligence work, the CIA director is the funnel through which 14 different intelligence agencies feed information on national security to the president.
Each of those agencies must feel free to tell the director things he may not want to hear, and it is the responsibility of the director to pass important information along to the president, free of political baggage.
The director's allegiance lies not to a president or to an administration, but the nation as a whole.
We feared that Porter Goss did not see his role in that light. Now he has proven us right.
In a statement to CIA employees, Goss said this: "I intend to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road. We support the administration and its policies in our work. As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies."
Break with tradition
This is a dangerous redefinition of the agency's role. While the CIA director is nominated by the president, he is not a member of the cabinet and, like the FBI director, his tenure has not traditionally been tied to the fate of a president or an administration.
The CIA director is not supposed to be a yes-man for the president. Those who work for the CIA are not supposed to be yes-men for the administration.
Goss sailed through the Senate following his nomination to the post, apparently as a professional courtesy from colleagues. It was not as if his tenure as chairman of the House intelligence committee did not provide possible topics of conversation. While he was chairman of the committee, it completed fewer major investigations of the CIA's performance than its counterpart panel in the Senate. Goss's committee did not investigate the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad or the faulty prewar intelligence analysis of Iraq.
The signs were there that Goss was not inclined to buck the administration. The Senate failed to follow those signs, and now the CIA appears to be firmly in the grasp of a director whose political priorities could put the nation at risk.