(HINT: Blue Dresses...Rented by the Hour)
By Brad Friedman on 5/5/2006, 11:45am PT  

As the corporate mainstream media shakes their head in clueless wonder about the Porter Goss resignation at CIA, (they're "stunned", "suprised", "can't imagine what else must be going on to have brought this on") the clues have been bubbling for the last week or so on the Internet.

We associate ourselves with Josh Marshall's initial take...

Here at TPM HQ we were listening to the president's announcement. And the talking heads on CNN were speculating whether Goss's departure might be part of Josh Bolten's 'new blood' shake up in the Bush administration. I don't suppose it anything to do with the fact that Goss is neck deep in the Wilkes-Corruption-and-Hookers story that's been burbling in the background all week. We don't know definitely why Goss pulled the plug yet. But the CIA Director doesn't march over to the White House and resign, effective immediately, unless something very big is up.

(Point of pride ed. note: TPMmuckraker has been on top of this story all week.)

Muckraker has, in fact, been all over various points of the developing scandal for the last week or so. We recommend you keep your eyes over there as things move foward.

Underscoring the bizarre state of our national corporate mainstream media, Josh made a related point earlier today, prior to the Goss announcement. As readers were wondering why TPM and their Muckraker site were giving so much attention to the Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) incident which, readers comments had suggested, just distracts from all of the more important GOP scandals, Josh defended their coverage with this reply...

The simple fact is that when you have an alleged driving under the influence or sleep-driving story and it involves a Kennedy, the press is going to be all over that. What's new.

But here's what does get my attention. There's another pretty tawdry story that's out there --- one about members of Congress getting sauced up at rollicking parties and set up with hookers by crooked defense contractors in exchange for help bagging pricey defense contracts.

That's pretty salacious too. You'd expect the press to be all over it. As Justin reported yesterday, the legendary Watergate Hotel has already received mulitple subpoenas from federal investigators investigating the hotel's role in 'Hookergate'. So this thing's for real.

Yet, I'm not seeing any morning show's running with it.

And, while the Kennedy story is 'newsy' it doesn't really have any greater policy implications. And the public trust implications are minor. The Wilkes-Watergate-Hooker story, on the other hand, is both. It's salacious, which the press loves. And it's also directly tied to crooks ripping off taxpayers, probably allowing our service members abroad to have shoddy equipment or defense dollars going to worthless projects.

So, we're on the Kennedy case. But why the silence on the much bigger scandal bubbling up out of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee?

Cricket, cricket ...

(BTW, when you hear the wingnuts outraged that Kennedy was allowed to get by without a breathalyzer, please remind them that Dick Cheney shot a man in the face, and yet was allowed to get by without, not only a breathalyzer test, but even without an interview with police authorities for a full 15 hours. Neither may be right, but we're just pointing out the phoniness of the mock outrage coming from the wingnuts in re: Kennedy's treatment.)

UPDATE: CNN just mentioned the Wilkes-Watergate-Hooker scandal...albeit with an emphasis on the "Poker Parties"...as opposed to the Prostitution angle. We suspect much more will be coming out as the mainstream media buck up their courage can't help but avoid the obvious, and finally begin to report on the case. Had it been Democrats alleged of holding Hooker parties at the Watergate hotel, do you suppose the MSM would have been all over it long ago?

UPDATED UPDATE: Ooops...CNN now talking about prostitutes. Imagine that.

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Article Categories: CNN, Mainstream Corporate Media, CIA, Election 2006, Corporate Media, Mainstream Media Failure, Accountability, Patrick McHenry, Republicans