What follows is speculation. I’m passing this on from Josh Marshall, who also calls it speculation. But it’s real juicy speculation.

Remember Mary McCarthy? In a post on the just-fired CIA executive director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, Josh writes,

Foggo seems to have been close to the hack-in-chief in the partisanized hackocracy that Goss tried to create at the CIA. But does Foggo’s role in pressing what were apparently leak probes of unprecedented scope have some deeper connection to the story?

We now know that the CIA Inspector General’s investigation, which CIA spokespersons had until recently been calling perfunctory, was nothing of the sort. They were there on the scene yesterday helping haul documents out of Foggo’s home and office. That investigation has been going on for some time. And clearly it was a pretty big deal.

The biggest scalp bagged by those leak investigations was CIA historian and Africa specialist Mary McCarthy. You remember that a few weeks ago she was fired from the Agency, just before retiring, allegedly for leaking information to the Washington Post‘s Dana Priest.

Now, in emails today, several readers noted the fact that at the time of her firing, McCarthy was working in the CIA’s Inspector General’s office, the same office that was then investigating Foggo and not more than a few weeks after McCarthy’s firing would participating in raids on Foggo’s home and office.

Could it be that McCarthy’s firing had nothing to do with leaks to journalists, but was part of a last-ditch effort by Foggo and Goss to cover their butts? Hmmmm … but, as Josh says, there is no doubt more going on beneath the surface that we have yet to learn about, so this theory could fall apart in days to come.

Josh also cites news stories that say Goss did not know Foggo before making him the number three guy at the CIA, which makes one wonder how Foggo leaped from a much lower-level position into the executive director’s office.

Maybe the Foggo came on little cat feet?

Sorry, but when you get a chance to snark about somebody named Foggo, I say take advantage. Lots of other people have already used “Foggo of War.” I’m trying to be original.

Speaking of which, in “The Foggo of War” Larry Johnson writes more about Mr. Foggo and his affiliations with the guys running the poker-and-prostitute parties connected to Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Foggo may be a bit player in that part of the drama, Johnson says.