CIA Director General David Petraeus' resignation

[River]

Is Petraeus a Republican, btw, or associated with Republican values in some way?


I kind of wondered why this was such a big deal too, Alatar. I'm not a big fan of infidelity in general, but does it really affect his ability to do his job?

Yes, he is a Republican but he hasn't been the type that bangs on the family values drum. And really, when you get down to it, his party affiliation is not the issue. I really wish I could find the article that spelled this out and link it, but the reason it's a big deal has nothing to do with moral fiber. The reason it's a big deal is because he's with the CIA and the CIA sees people who conduct extra-marital affairs as compromised. It's the sort of thing that an enemy could exploit. The military also takes a very dim view of this behavior; my understanding is, if he were still a general, he could be court-martialled. So, as silly as it seems to us on the outside, in the intelligence community having an affair is as big a deal as leaving a top secret file on a park bench somewhere and Petraeus did exactly the right thing by tendering his resignation.

He's also not the first CIA Director to resign over an idiot move, as it turns out. Some guy named Deutch turned in his resignation after it was found he was keeping classified info on his home computer. Oops.

As for why the FBI was involved, it could be any number of reasons, but they do perform periodic checks on people with high levels of security clearance, or so I've been told by friends and acquaintances in the aerospace industry. My thesis advisor's father worked for Rockwell during the Cold War and he told me once that every year or so the FBI would be banging on the neighbors' doors, asking if they've noticed anything odd about the family's spending and travel habits. Life gets weird when you join the spook show. I have one friend who took a pay cut so she wouldn't have to deal with maintaining a Top Secret clearance anymore.

Frelga, the job of testifying before Congress will now fall to the Acting Director.

[nerdanel]

My understanding is the same as River's: this is not a family values issue, but an intelligence issue due to the potential for exploitation or blackmail if an "enemy" discovered it. Assuming the truth of that, then it seems to me that Petraeus showed extraordinarily poor professional judgment in engaging in the affair and did the right thing in swiftly resigning without much ceremony once the affair came to light.

Apart from the intelligence issue, I agree with those who feel that a high-ranking official's sexual and romantic decisions, including extramarital ones, are irrelevant to their job performance and should not be grounds for resignation.

L_M, to amplify Anthy's very polite comment, your snide, disparaging remark about Holly Petraeus's looks relative to the woman who conducted an affair with her husband is offensive, inappropriate, and disappointing. By all accounts, Ms. Petraeus is a successful professional in the federal government and a dedicated wife and mother of multiple decades who seems to be the victim in a very humiliating, public situation at the moment; it is juvenile at best to attack her looks. (ETA One of two victims, the other being Ms. Broadwell's husband. It seems scarcely to have been recognized that he is a victim, though: many news accounts did not even make clear that she was married.)

[River]

(ETA One of two victims, the other being Ms. Broadwell's husband. It seems scarcely to have been recognized that he is a victim, though: many news accounts did not even make clear that she was married.)

I just saw a pic of Ms. Broadwell and her husband on HuffPo. He's as handsome as his wife is beautiful. Definitely better looking than Petraeus so, if one wnated to so shallow, one could ask what she was thinking. HOWEVER, fidelity has nothing to do with looks. Partners stray not because someone prettier comes along but because there's something fundamentally screwed up about their current relationship and rather than address the issue they get sneaky and dishonest.

[anthriel]

Why did you ask, anthy?

Oh, not in any way because I feel anyone has any reason to expect higher moral fiber from a Republican! Not at all. Sorry if it looked that way!

Yeah, yeah, Bill Clinton. It always comes back to Bill Clinton.

Yeah, yeah, Bill Clinton for sure. He really is sort of the high water mark for low behavior, when it comes to high ranking officials with a lot to lose who are somehow relentlessly, irretrievably idiotic about foolin' around.

I dunno, some people still talk about officer's honor. No one has mentioned a politician's honor in a long time.

Too true. Sad, that.

[River]

I was just listening to a thing on NPR about this. The commentator said that part of the shock value in this is that Petraeus has always come off as too disciplined and too smart to make this kind of mistake. This had nothing to do with his personal politics. It was in his persona.

[WampusCat]

The FBI began investigating because the biographer was sending harassing emails to another woman (not a government employee or Petraeus' wife). That person was so spooked and threatened by the emails that she went to police, who hastily bumped it up to the FBI when they found out who was involved.

The investigation led to the biographer's email account, which revealed the relationship and made the FBI worry about a security breach.

Pretty bizarre.

[Holbytla]

So Petraeus won't be testifying about the Benghazi attacks? If that is true, that seems strange to me.

This investigation took the FBI 4 months?
The President wasn't notified until election night? Congress wasn't notified until Friday? Reps from both sides of the aisle are shocked and up in arms.

I was wrong. This won't be quickly resolved.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I agree.

[Holbytla]

It really is difficult for me to fathom this sort of thing. How many people over how many years have left an electronic trail that has ultimately led to their demise or an uncovering of aberrant behavior? There are so many examples, it is mind boggling.

And yet we have the Director of the CIA who apparently acts as if he is immune to such things? If anyone on the planet should know better, I think it would be him.

I have no idea what the facts are here, but the whole thing seems really illogical and bewildering at this point.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Again, I agree. I can't recall any comparable circumstance.

I did see that Diane Feinstein (the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee) said that Petraeus might still testify on Bengazi.

I must say, I thought it was odd when President Obama appointed Gen. Petraeus to head the CIA. Not that I remotely expected anything like this. I do know that Leon Panetta didn't want to leave the post to become Sec. of Defense. I think he has done a good job there, but I would have preferred that he stay at the CIA. I have followed Leon Panetta's career for a long time, since he was a congressman from this area, and I was happy to have someone in that position who's integrity I was sure of.

[Holbytla]

And yet by all accounts that I have ever heard, Petraeus was a well respected leader and had all the bipartisan support anyone could ever hope for. I guess it makes sense that a 4 star General who was so involved with our operations in South East Asia would be a good pick for Director of the CIA, but I can't say I understood why Panetta was the odd man out there.
Maybe Obama felt the need to reward his service in some way?

I hope Petraeus does get to testify, but you have to wonder at this point how focused that testimony will be. It seems like there is already an asterisk next to his testimony. The situation really smells bad all over.

[River]

It really is difficult for me to fathom this sort of thing. How many people over how many years have left an electronic trail that has ultimately led to their demise or an uncovering of aberrant behavior? There are so many examples, it is mind boggling.

And yet we have the Director of the CIA who apparently acts as if he is immune to such things? If anyone on the planet should know better, I think it would be him.

I have no idea what the facts are here, but the whole thing seems really illogical and bewildering at this point.

And the fact he should have known better is why he did the right thing by resigning.

I imagine that, over coming days, more of what happened will emerge. From what little facts I can glean from the media, some third party linked to Petraeus reported to her local law enforcement that she was getting harassing e-mails from Broadwell. Once local law enforcement realized who was involved, they kicked it over to the FBI and things rolled from there. At this point, I'm not convinced there's any grand conspiracy going on. It might be that the investigation took four months because the FBI, thinking initially that these two women were the only players, decided it had higher priorities (yeah, they had security clearances, but how many resources do you direct at something that appeared to be a nasty cat fight??). And then they eventually found out that the CIA Director was rather intimately involved in the mess and things escalated from there.

[Holbytla]

Yeah I'm not buying into the conspiracy thing at this
point either, but it is messy and something doesn't jive.

I suspect that the awkward timing has a lot to do with it.
[/list]

[River]

Yes, the timing is extremely awkward. But, then again, is the timing of a sex scandal ever not awkward?

[Holbytla]

Yeah but how many of them are leaked on an anniversary or other important date?

Along with all of the other issues, this happened to become known on election night and several days prior to a testimony by the chief witness?

I don't possess any facts, but damn this is one of the most coincidental things I have seen.

Maybe it is just that, coincidence, but it is peculiarly coincidental.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I split off the discussion about the joke about Gen. Petraeusto a separate thread.

[River]

As fishy as such coincidences may seem, they can occur. Random chance can pile up events in funny ways. That's how games like poker and blackjack can exist.

And apparently Cantor knew about this back in October. If that pans out it begs the question of why Cantor and his office didn't let anything leak to the public given how damaging this could have been before the election. Call me a cynic, but I don't expect displays of good character and sound judgment from members of Congress. And that applies to both parties. And, of course, if that story pans out, it also begs the question of why Cantor and his office didn't at least slip a note to the appropriate committees.

[nerdanel]

Okay, y'all. If we're doing Petraeus humor, just (re)watch this, Paula Broadwell's interview with Jon Stewart to promote her book on Petraeus, "All In" (if anyone outside the US wants to watch and doesn't have their browser set up to access Comedy Central, PM me.) I watched this interview back when it aired, but so many unwitting (by JS) or "witting" (from Broadwell) double entendres and other moments stand out...

Jon Stewart: The last time I recall a journalist or an author embedded with a person at this level...

Jon Stewart (describing Broadwell's book): I would say the real controversy here is, is he awesome, or incredibly awesome?
Paula Broadwell (responding): I have a detail to share with you. He can turn water into bottled water.
Stewart: The one thing that we did find out is that his nickname is Peaches.
Broadwell: It was Peaches. When he was in high school, and it followed him to West Point...stuck a little bit.
Stewart: Well I think I just stuck it in there, right there...Peaches!

Stewart: So to get to know him, he wanted to run with you...
Broadwell: This is a typical men - mechanism that he's used throughout his life to get to know young people...he's done it throughout his life.

Broadwell (describing running with Petraeus): I thought I'd test him, and then he thought he'd test me, and it ended up being a test for both of us because we both run pretty quickly...but it was the foundation of our relationship...when I was in Kabul, we would do a lot of interviews on runs. For him, I think it was a good distra - um, legacy - and he also came at it from a mentoring point of view.

Stewart: Ten miles in, was he ever like, "I don't know what I'm doing! I've failed everyone that ever loved me?"
Broadwell: No. No dirty secrets, no. He'd just pick up the pace so neither of us could talk.
Stewart: Peaches!

Broadwell: I don't think there's any senior military leader, or anyone who has worked closely to him, who wouldn't acknowledge that he goes all in to what he does.

Stewart: He's a long-term strategic thinker.
Broadwell: No, he's not.

Broadwell (to her own husband, on air): Sorry, honey. I couldn't do it.
(In the finest tradition of TDS, I took the last two quotes completely out of context.)

Stewart (in response to Broadwell's invocation of her husband): So integrity's running in the whole family, I guess...

[Dave_LF]

It sounds like there was some blackmail going on, and I really, really hope that making himself vulnerable to that sort of thing is the real crime here. Because I'm extremely uncomfortable with the idea of the FBI investigating people for having sex the wrong way. Especially given that his organization was previously able to torture people to death without apparent repercussions.

[axordil]

Dave--that power is exactly why no one in that position can afford to be compromised, or (shades of Caesar's wife) even to be in the appearance of being able to be compromised.