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Kevin is right - the first 24 hours after the Goss resignation have seen the media rapidly settle on a slightly bizarre "turf wars" explanation for his sudden departure. In fact, despite signs that it was and is directly related to the widening Hookergate scandal, by as early as 7pm last night CNN had already settled on that narrative to the exclusion of all others.

Call me crazy, but from out here in the reality-based community its just so painfully obvious that this turf war thing is just White House spin that its hard to believe its being reported without any caveats whatsoever. Here's how the WaPo is covering it today, for example:

But senior administration officials said Bush had lost confidence in Goss, 67, almost from the beginning and decided months ago to replace him. In what was described as a difficult meeting in April with Negroponte, Goss was told to prepare to leave by May, according to several officials with knowledge of the conversation. "There has been an open conversation for a few weeks, through Negroponte, with the acknowledgment of the president" about replacing Goss, said a senior White House official who discussed the internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity. Another senior White House official said Goss had always been viewed as a "transitional figure" who would leave by year's end. His departure was accelerated when Bush shook up his White House staff in hopes of beginning a political turnaround.

The story goes on and on with a near endless series of paragraphs like this, until suddenly....

Kostiw's replacement, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, is the subject of a review by the CIA's inspector general. The agency is examining whether Foggo arranged for any contracts to be granted to companies associated with Brent R. Wilkes, a contractor and longtime friend of Foggo's who had connections to Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.). Cunningham left Congress and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for corruption. Foggo has said he has done nothing improper, and the agency has said the review is standard practice in such situations, not an indication of any wrongdoing. After Goss's announcement yesterday, Foggo told colleagues that he will resign next week. Last week, the agency confirmed that Foggo attended private poker games with Wilkes at a Washington hotel.

Foggo and Goss are close personal friends, and as Andrew Sullivan, The NY Daily News, and TPM Muckraker all have pointed out, its widely believed Goss and Foggo played poker together at the Hookergate parties.

And yet CNN continues to blindly report the administration's spin as if its the only possible explanation for this. For god's sake - the WaPo is reporting Foggo is going to resign this week. That's not setting off any alarm bells? The man is under federal investigation for participating in a congressional bribery/prostitution ring. Hello? CNN? Anyone home?

But fine, whatever. Let the administration have a few days or weeks of spin. In the end it will ultimately hurt far more than it will help. Lies, lies, lies...

And by the way... How bizarre is it that we can add the "gate" suffix for real this time? The parties were at the damn Watergate Hotel. I will never, ever get over that. Ever. Is this a novel or real life?

UPDATE: Want more?TPM Muckraker, CarpetBagger, Laura Rozen, and Larry Johnson are all doing some great work on this.

UPDATE II: Could this really be true? Remember that there is an ongoing FBI investigation here. If the prostitutes and escorts were men, and not women, we will eventually find out. Personally I could care less which team these guys play for. But given that we're just weeks away from another GOP-inspired debate on an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment, well.... this becomes politically relevant because they have made it so.

Now... wouldn't it be great if we found out Jimmy/Jeff Gannon made an appearance at one of these events? That's just too much to ask. We've already got the Watergate involved. There's no way we're going to hit the trifecta, is there?

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