ALERT! ALERT! Drudge sez:

President Bush has scheduled a personnel announcement for 1:45 p.m. EDT… Developing…

Assuming this is accurate (and with Drudge, that’s not a safe assumption, but let’s play along anyway), who do you think’s gettin’ kicked to the curb this time? Rummy? Rove (I know, highly unlikely, but dare to dream)? Or someone disappointing and predictable like John Snow?

UPDATE: Atrios has the exact same thought:

Jeebus hates me too much for it to be “Karl Rove has resigned, effective immediately…” Probably will be more along the lines of “John Snow will be replaced by some other guy just like John Snow.”

Yep. I’m prepared for disappointment too. Of course, if Snow gets replaced with Neil Cavuto… well, that would be pretty entertaining…

UPDATE 2: It’s Porter Goss. That is very interesting indeed.

OK, conspiracy theorists, get to work!!!

UPDATE 3: Sorry, Annie scooped me. I should have said. And FYI, Porter Goss is the CIA director.

UPDATE 4: And they took no questions afterwards. Fascinating. There is definitely, definitely more to this.

Teh Josh:

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.

UPDATE 5: MSNBC Military/Intel analyst Col. Ken Allard sez Goss resigned because of resistance in the intelligence community to his plans. This, of course, makes no sense. The White House appointed Goss with the specific intention of shaking up the intelligence community. His major qualification was his willingness to piss off career intelligence officers who didn’t toe the White House line.

UPDATE 6: The Editor’s speculates that it’s puh-puh-puh-puh-pony time!

UPDATE 7: Mucho amor to you too, Annie. And by the way, sorry to hear you got kicked off of Sean Hannity’s message board. You’ll always have a place here.

UPDATE 8: Atrios again:

According to Tim Russer this is all perfectly normal, a CIA director suddenly resigning with no advance warning to anyone and without a replacement chosen.

I’m so glad Tim’s there to accurately write down whatever the White House tells me.

Yep. I was psyched when MSNBC told me that Li’l Russ had “new information” about Goss’ resignation. But alas, he just repeated some BS line he heard from a “senior White House official,” a.k.a. Karl Rove’s fax machine.

There’s gotta be some reporter out there with a nose for dirt. C’mon, guys, go out there and rake that muck.

UPDATE 9: *Sigh* And we’re back to Patrick Kennedy again. Not that Kennedy’s crash isn’t a story, but the godddamn CIA director just resigned without prior notice on a Friday afternoon and without a replacement named. This is big news, guys.

Numero Diez: Zachary Roth:

But the fact that Goss hasn’t turned out to be the guy to reform the CIA isn’t surprising. Though he was a CIA case officer in the ’60s, it’s long been clear, as we noted before he took over as director in September ’04, that Goss is first and foremost a political hack. As House Intelligence committee chair, Goss consistently used his position to stifle investigations that could embarrass the White House, and showed more concern for his own career advancement than for national security.

In other words, he was the ideal Bush administration appointee.

There’s a reason Porter Goss resigned, kids, and it wasn’t because the White House felt bad about hurting the CIA’s feelings. Goss wouldn’t have quit just because he angered a bunch of career CIA officials- after all, Bush appointed him to the job for the express purpose of doing just that! There’s another shoe somewhere at there, and it’s going to drop very shortly.