Tenet is Done

we now break from the canadian election to bring you:

President Bush Cites 'Personal Reasons' in AnnouncementBy DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, June 3 — George J. Tenet has resigned as director of central intelligence, President Bush said today in an announcement that stunned Washington by its timing.

"Today, George Tenet, the director of the C.I.A., submitted a letter of resignation," Mr. Bush said on the South Lawn of the White House. "I met with George last night in the White House. I had a good visit with him. He told me he was resigning for personal reasons."

But while Mr. Bush said he had told Mr. Tenet he was sorry to see him go and that he had done "a superb job on behalf of the American people," there was immediate speculation that there was much more behind the departure than Mr. Tenet's wish to leave the demands of a post he has held since 1997.

Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. have come under intense criticism since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The critics, in the government and outside it, have assailed the C.I.A., along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies, for failing to "connect the dots," or put together what in retrospect seemed to be a cornucopia of clues, and head off the attacks.

More recently, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has reportedly been pressing the C.I.A. to explain why he was apparently misinformed about Saddam Hussein's supposed possession of deadly chemical and biological weapons. Those weapons, which Mr. Powell told the United Nations were already in Iraq's arsenal and which were a key rationale for the American-led war to topple the Baghdad dictator, have so far not been found.

yeah, the old "hey! we forgot to do shit about 9/11, and then completely screwed up in iraq" thing. gets ya every time.