Goss did an admirable job under very difficult circumstances, moving from doing congressional oversight of the troubled CIA as the Chairman of House Intelligence Committee to being the Director of the agency he was often a severe critic of from his Capitol Hill perch. Goss improved the quality of CIA analysis and put more operations officer into the field during his tenure. If the White House doesn’t have a candidate already, it’s very possible that we might see a military flag officer (i.e., Admiral or General) with significant intelligence experience fill the position in the short-term, emphasizing the importance of intelligence support to ongoing military operations.