Dumb question - how did this get to be in the news?
I understand why the FBI investigated, and I understand how it led them to ask Petraeus about his relationship with Broadwell.
How did it come to be a headline? Was it just that Petraeus announced, “I’m resigning because I’ve been having sex with my briographer?”
dontbesojumpy when will you learn? All that info comes FROM the government. OF COURSE they’re gonna cover their own asses. :rolleyes:
That’s the way the it will be seen, sadly. 
Honestly? You think he could have gotten away with resigning without anyone noticing? And then nobody would ask why? Of course he or the White House announced it to the press, which is also why they timed it to make the news on a Friday afternoon.
Besides, it would have been necessary to brief the congressional intelligence oversight committee, so the news would certainly have come out.
There is a tidbit in teh interwebs today that Eric Cantor had been tipped off about the affair back at the end of October, and actually contacted the FBI himself on Oct. 31 to find out about what was going on. Supposedly, the President himself was not informed of the issue until the eve of the election (Nov. 5). The interesting question now is why it took the FBI so long to investigate this issue (the complaint about the harrassment is supposed to have been made to the FBI some months ago).
Paula Broadwell is living now in Charlotte, NC (I live just across the border in SC). Needless to say, there was a fair amount about this in today’s Charlotte Observer. She’s been an up-and-comer for some time. The couple is fairly well-to-do (he’s a successful doctor). She wrote a book about General Petraeus, after having spent several months following him around all over in his job regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the letter from Gen. Petraeus to the CIA staff announcing his resignation seems to hint that the affair was a recent thing, I’m tending to doubt that at this point.
Interestingly, the intelligence oversight committees were NOT briefed in advance of the resignation, and they are beginning to scream about it. I forsee some really partisan football going on here, especially since Gen. Petraeus was scheduled to testify on behalf of the CIA regarding the Benghazi affair.
The CTs are having a field day with the Benghazi/Petraeus thing.
Not bad luck, according to this author of a recent book (The Generals), Thomas Ricks, but rather methods of accountability.
In a recent Atlantic article, he says:
[QUOTE=Thomas Ricks]
To a shocking degree, the Army’s leadership ranks have become populated by mediocre officers, placed in positions where they are likely to fail. Success goes unrewarded, and everything but the most extreme failure goes unpunished, creating a perverse incentive system that drives leaders toward a risk-averse middle where they are more likely to find stalemate than victory. A few high-profile successes, such as those of General David Petraeus in Iraq, may temporarily mask this systemic problem, but they do not solve it.
[/quote]
(bolding added)
Well there’s this fellow called Mitt who’s looking around for a job now (although his 5 child indicate he lacks your second qualification).
I’m re-reading David Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes at the moment. From its very inception the CIA’s been full of all sorts of nut cases, from Angleton’s bizarre chessmaster fantasies to Wisner’s raging alcoholism, Dulles’ arrogant narcissism and on and on. Hell by the standards of the CIA’s early years Petreaus’s faults are small beer indeed.
Re the OP (as so many have pointed out) - extramarital affairs are perceived as massive lapses of judgment, oathbreaking and general seediness. And in a security-sensitive post a big blackmail risk.
She’s attractive enough, but am I the only one who has noticed her resemblance to Christine Keeler? Maybe not identical, but more in a “I threw my life away over HER?” way.
Really, gentlemen, we must have our standards. Marilyn Monroe? Yes. Judith Exner? I don’t think so.
you’re totally right, and i learned that the hard way today via a disheartening conversation w someone who expressed this exact sentiment. it’s pretty depressing when there’s a full-on refusal of the basis of perceptible reality. i couldn’t persuade them, not even with facts and figures.
it went something like this:
‘i think the bengz thing will end up being a non-event. i think it’s not much of a scandal.’
“BASED ON WHAT?!”
‘well, testimony. timelines. know how they said they’re investigating it? turns out–they are. results are trickling in; they show more and more there was no scandal.’
“BUT FOX NEWS SAID…”
‘lemme stop you there. here are a ton of facts and figures about how fox news could be tainting your perception…’
“EVERY OTHER SOURCE OF INFORMATION IS BIAS LIBERAL.”
‘that’s specious–considering the PEW foundation recently reported Obama received more negative press in all media post-first debate–both in ratio to pos/negative and rom pos/obam neg–according to stats, he’s being relatively skewered on all the channels (MSNBC notwithstanding…’
“THE PEW FOUNDATION IS A LIAR. ALL STATS ARE LIARS.”
‘yeah…that line of reasoning is working out real well for the conservatives, isn’t it, captain "romney-wins-in-landslide-because-math-is-of-the-devil?’
…
so now i have to deal with my new reality, which is my folks–who have an ever-increasing need for my presence–are actively objecting to and subsequently disregarding objective reality.
You don’t mean to suggest, I hope, that men looking for sluts don’t subject them through a proper vetting process.
Because I just can’t believe that.
I was a teenager when a fellow Burger King employee pulled me aside and said, “Dude, don’t stick your dick in the crazy”, and that advice has served me well years hence.
I don’t find that last question particularly interesting. Sure, the politicians and news are going to make hay about it, but law enforcement investigations take time. It is quite frankly a grind, particularly when including digital investigations of computers and emails. It’s not a CSI or Law & Order episode, it’s real life.
The Washington Post has an article about the investigation and calls for a probe.
[QUOTE=DSYoung]
The interesting question now is why it took the FBI so long to investigate this issue (the complaint about the harrassment is supposed to have been made to the FBI some months ago).
[/QUOTE]
How far up the FBI’s priority list do you think “someone sent a unpaid volunteer who works at a military base some anonymous, nasty emails” goes? I’m more surprised that they pursued it as far as they did, rather then the fact that it took so long for them to trace it back to Broadwell and Petraeus.
Maybe I’m biased because I know what happened, but when I watched that interview with Jon Stewart, I’d sure say it was obvious she had a thing for him. That was more than professional curiosity!
Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone reviewed her book and described it as “fan fiction”.
BTW, this isn’t about an extramarital affair, this is pure politics. Some winger at the FBI told Eric Cantor about the investigation and a possible coverrup in the hopes that it could be used against Obama in the election. Once Cantor started asking questions, Petraeus became a liability. And good riddance to that overrated careerist.
Eh, I dunno if someone going after him for partisan advantage makes much sense. Even if it had happened before the election, its hard to see how this hurts Obama. The GOP was at least as vocal, if not more-so, then Obama in their Petraeus boosterism.
It does look like someone in the FBI was gunning for him though.
Winger logic. The FBI source was only focused on hurting Obama before the election. The fondness that higher-level Republicans had for Petraeus never entered his thinking.
(I have absolutely nothing to support this theory, BTW, I just find it fishy that the FBI source would blab to Eric Cantor, of all people.)
He didn’t leak it directly to Cantor. He leaked it to another GOP rep who passed it to Cantor.
But apparently the same FBI agent was also a friend of the woman who received the harassing emails, and was the one who filed the complaint on her behalf. So the same guy that initiated the investigation that led to Petreaeus also found a Congressman to blab to when it looked like the FBI might just close the investigation. And as I said in the other thread, the effort the FBI put into the case in the early stages seems way out of proportion to “5-10 harassing emails” to a woman who wasn’t even a paid employee of the US gov’t.
So I can easily believe someone in the FBI really wanted to get Petraeus with this. But I don’t really see any reason to think it was for partisan advantage. And I’d be a little cautious of the urge to see everything in terms of GOP vs Dems.
If somebody’s shooting their mouth off about how the head of your government’s shadowy paramilitary organisation has been compromised, wouldn’t you want to get to the bottom of things too?
