The director of CIA just resigned because it became known he had an extramarital affair. Everyone seems to agree that he’s very competent and well suited for the job, but this still seems to be the expected decision. To me this is very odd.
Granted, I come from a culture where this would not even get reported. Cheating on your spouse is not a crime (here) and the private life of officials aren’t in general considered to be of public interest as long as it doesn’t involve breaking the law. That’s reserved for TV celebreties and the King.
I guess the argument is that “If we can’t trust him not to cheat on his wife, how can we trust him to xxx…” which seems very flawed to me. Many corrupt people are highly “moral” when it comes to marriage and vice versa.
Now I have three questions regarding this:
Is this issue discussed? Obviously this practise means that there is an unneccesary brain drain when competent people resign or are fired because of this, and even if you think that is a reasonable price to pay you could have a discussion about it.
How far does this go? I assume this is not relevant to the privat sector, but is it only the highest positions in the public sector that is effected by this or does it go further? Board members, principals… where’s the cut-off?
I can understand this being a bigger deal than if some politician or businessperson did it. I think his has more in common with that case involving the secret service agents and hookers. It’s a big security risk and puts him in a position to be blackmailed, etc.
And, by resigning he can just fade from the public spotlight. He’ll probably still have reporters chasing him for a while, but if he stays in the job he’d have to be questioned about the affair every single time he stepped in front of a microphone, for official business or not, his entire career.
In this case, as well, though it may be that a Director (after all a political appointee) as such could probably weather it ITLR as something between himself and Mrs. P not affecting his job performance, it is important to send a message down to the rest of the Agency that nobody should place themselves in a potentially compromised position. So it is indeed the* Expected Thing To Do* for the sake of being able institutionally to tell the people on the lines to watch their own conduct and avoid anything that can draw unwanted attention.
If the director of a spy agency can’t keep his affair a secret why should I trust him with state secrets? I don’t ask this on the basis of morality but one of practicality. Part of his job is keeping secrets and he’s demonstrated that he can’t do this. From a practical side, by having an affair he opens himself up to possible blackmail. Also, in this particular case, isn’t the FBI investigating whether or not his mistress attempted to access his email without authorization?
I’m on Stoneburg’s side with this. The USA makes a much bigger deal with this than the rest of the world. You’re going to be blackmailed because you boinked someone else while married? I can’t even make sense of that.
Politicians and public figures in the rest of the world are still allowed to have private lives.
Maybe it shouldn’t be a big deal to have an affair. But anybody with any sense these days knows when it comes to people in those kind of positions it IS a very big deal.
He knew that and did it anyway. Thats pretty poor judgement. And if it came out it would harm his ability to do the job. So, he choose to make it hard for him to do his job. Bad career move generally.
Strangely enough there are a lot of men who have affairs and don’t want their wives to find out because they don’t want to go through a messy divorce. Does that make sense?
These rules might apply to anyone in the U.S. with a clearance level. Being deep in debt, being an alcoholic and other personal issues can affect your clearance level.
No. You resign and the wife finds out anyway. Why not tell her privately, keep your job, and deal with the divorce which was going to happen one way or another.
Apples and oranges. No one is going to take your security clearance away because you had an affair.
But people are flawed. And usually, the more talented people are, the more flawed they are. Sure, you could probably find some Mormon eunuch android with no skeletons in his closet, but odds are, he won’t be the best man for the job.
Patreus was the best American general sonce Korea, and as far as I know was doing a fine job in the CIA. He’s a great man, and great men have great faults. You can’t have one withou the other.
Some are linking it to Benghazi, and I wonder if in general he just wants to retire without any professional issues lingering to call his otherwise good reputation into question.
No, the idea is that, absent the investigation and resulting reveal and resignation, he he might have been subject to blackmail to avoid the divorce (and, for Petraeus particularly, future political considerations).
That’s not the question. The question was “Why is extramarital affairs cause for resignation?”
He resigned. He resigned because he had an affair. Presumably he told his wife about it prior to resigning. If he already told his wife about it then there’s no reason for blackmail.
Having an affair, admitting it to your wife, is no reason for resignation in most countries. It wouldn’t even make the damned news. That was the point of the OP.
Sorry. I’m tired. Maybe I’m ill-informed about the Petraeus’ case. I thought he resigned because he simply had an affair. That’s all I heard on the news. I’ll read up on the issue. If it involved stolen, or misplaced documents or something then that’s a whole different ball of wax.
