Martyr Complex

Operation Rent-a-Secret

Update on an item two weeks ago about a CIA agent who happened to leave some secret papers in a rental car at Dulles airport. We're told CIA Director Porter J. Goss , at a "town hall" staff meeting at headquarters last week, was asked what would happen to the person who left the documents in the car.

"I thought it was a brilliant deception operation," Goss joked, "and I am still going along on that assumption." He said he did not know the status of any inquiry into that.

Bush May Lose GSA Chief

Increasing buzz around town -- on the Hill and at the General Services Administration -- is that GSA Administrator Stephen A. Perry , who's been in the job since the beginning of the Bush administration, is heading back to Ohio shortly. No confirmation yesterday from GSA.

Absents Make the Heart Grow Fodder

Nothing if not tasteful . . . The venerable Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington 's blog -- "delivering news and opinion since May 9, 2005" -- reports that Louisiana state Sen. Craig Romero (R) was in town recently enlisting support for his race against Rep. Charlie Melancon (D).

An information packet he handed out "to special interest groups," the Post said, noted that if Hurricane Katrina's victims do not move back home, the congressional district, once held by former representative W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R), would easily go Republican. Melancon won in 2004 with only 50.2 percent of the vote.

Romero's info packet, which included a handy pie chart -- "3rd District with Katrina Parishes Removed" -- shows the vote would have been 57 to 43 percent Republican. (Of course, that Republican was the very popular Tauzin.)

A Boo-Boo

Some folks follow baseball; others like cartoons. Gen. George W. Casey , testifying yesterday to the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, according to a transcript: "And I think it was Yogi Bear that said, 'Predictions are hard, especially when you're talking about the future.' "

Actually, Casey correctly cited the famed Yankees catcher Yogi Berra .