Good point. However, I would imagine that if GHW Bush had been President when the CIA came up with this harebrained scheme, the former CIA Director might have had a second thought about it, and challenged the spooks a little more than Old Slick did.
But we do have to consider the past few years of verifiable evidence pointing to a less then effective CIA. A point is reached where a POTUS must decide if he believes the credibility of his Intel Agencies merit the risk of allowing certain things to be pulled off. We can go back in time and see quite a few royal screw ups by the CIA regardless of who was in the WH.