Is the CIA a "rogue agency"?

Apparently that's the smokescreen being put up by Senator McCain and other Republicans according to a NYT piece today.

A backdrop to the tensions have been accusations from some Republicans that the agency sought over the summer to undermine Mr. Bush's re-election. Mr. McCain, in suggesting that the agency had been disloyal, has singled out the disclosure of intelligence reports about Iraq whose conclusions were at odds with administration assertions about the war.

Excuse me!?! Americans are supposed to send our boys off to die based on overtly PARTISAN "intelligence"??? Is Senator McCain seriously suggesting that the CIA should have lied because it would have been politically advantageous for Bush?

John E. McLaughlin, a career CIA official who is stepping down from the agency's No. 2 position after less than two months as Mr. Goss's deputy, issued a rare public rebuttal to McCain in Tuesday's Washington Post

Has everyone ruled out the possibility that the intelligence community during this period was simply doing its job - calling things as it saw them - and that people with a wide array of motives found it advantageous to put out this material when the C.I.A.'s views seemed at odds with the administration's?

For his part Director Goss issued a memorandum last week advised his employees that the agency's job was to "support the administration and its policies" and to do nothing to associate themselves with opposition to the administration.

Clearly "we the people" can no longer trust the Goss-lead CIA. His memorandum makes that much stunningly obvious. We won't know if what the CIA officially reports are objective findings based on the data or if it's partisan propaganda. Senator McCain has made his feelings on the matter crystal clear.

Folks, this isn't about Republicans and Democrats. It's about the American people being able to trust that we're sending our sons and daughters off to die on foreign soil for legitimate reasons!

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go delete the McCain banner link that I've had up at The Independent Voter ever since I first created the site in early 2000. I can no longer in good conscience recommend Senator McCain as a patriotic statesman.

I am deeply disappointed...

(cross-posted at Preemptive Karma)