New CIA chief blunders in the starting blocks

When Porter Goss took over as the new director of the CIA just two weeks ago, it was clear that he was going to have to demonstrate that he was willing to place the agency above politics. He is off in an inauspicious beginning.
Goss, 65, moved to the CIA from Congress where he represented southwest Florida in the House since 1989. The Senate approved his nomination on a 77-17 vote, with some Democrats questioning whether he could break his political ties and fun the CIA with the independence that the job requires.
Given that, it would have been expected that Goss would err on the side of caution in making appointments to key jobs in his agency.
Instead, Goss demonstrated almost a defiance of conventional wisdom in making one of his earliest and most important appointments.
An unwise choice
He nominated Michael Kostiw, who had been an aide to Goss in the House intelligence committee, to the post of executive director, the man who oversees the agency's personnel and budgets, a role similar to that of a chief operating officer.
Kostiw's partisan ties to Congress would have been cause for concern, but it was his experience at the CIA, the very agency that he would oversee, that is shocking.
Kostiw resigned from the CIA in 1981 after being accused of shoplifting a $2.13 package of bacon from a supermarket. After failing a lie detector test, Kostiw was offered a deal: resign and agree to counseling and the CIA would use its influence to have the shoplifting charge dropped. Kostiw took the deal.
Wisely, Kostiw withdrew from consideration for the executive director's job, saying "allegations about my past would be a distraction from the critical work the Director of Central Intelligence needs to focus on."
We have to wonder why Kostiw and Goss couldn't have foreseen that potential distraction. That they didn't -- or that they did and decided to take a chance that the issue would never come up -- is troubling. It is troubling because it hints at an unwillingness of Goss to cut his ties with partisans from his congressional days, even when common sense would dictate that he do so.
Two views
Supporters of Goss and Kostiw are saying that he was undercut by CIA bureaucrats intent on protecting their turf from a tough administrator. Maybe. Or maybe career agents simply resented being told that the man who would be responsible for overseeing disciplinary action in the agency had himself been drummed out for good cause.
Goss responded to the controversy by abandoning the plant to make Kostiw the executive director. He instead named him a senior adviser, a job that is not subject to Senate confirmation. Kostiw joins four Republican staff members Goss has also named to CIA staff positions.
Goss seems to be going out of his way to prove his critics right.