Reading notes

Brian Lehrer reports that according to Fahrenheit 9/11 cutting-room floor footage, Rep. Porter Goss told an interviewer only five months ago that he isn’t qualified to work at the CIA:

I couldn’t get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified. I don’t have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We’re looking for Arabists today. I don’t have the cultural background probably. And I certainly don’t have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day, “Dad you got to get better on your computer.” Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don’t have.

Fascinating. So why did Mr. Bush nominate Mr. Goss to head the CIA? Personally, I’ve always preferred sound qualifications in people who work for me. I don’t have any substantive knowledge about Mr. Goss’s actual qualifications to lead the CIA, but I think if he’s credible now, he couldn’t have been incredible just five months ago. IOW, asserting he has a clue now implies he probably had a clue about his own qualifications then. I’m sure he’s just a <coff> lightning-fast learner.

Imaginary conversation snippet running through my head:
“Hell, Porta-Pottaaay, I don’t know what the [Cheney] I’m doin’, either. But it don’t never seem to matter. Quafilications are stupid things, anyway. Far’s I’m concerned, you goss-it, baby.”

[via Dale]