;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 13, 2012
Kimberly Dozier & Pete Yost of the AP: "CIA Director David Petraeus was shocked to learn last summer that his mistress was suspected of sending threatening emails warning another woman to stay away from him, former staff members and friends told The Associated Press Monday. Petraeus told these associates his relationship with the second woman, Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, was platonic...." CW: this is a very long report that includes a useful timeline. ...
... Martha Raddatz, et al., of ABC News: "The FBI withheld its findings about Gen. David Petreaus' affair from the White House and congressional leaders because the agency considered them the result of a criminal investigation that never reached the threshold of an intelligence probe, law enforcement sources said today. The sources said agents followed department guidelines that generally bar sharing information about developing criminal investigations." ...
... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "The FBI team spent weeks (months?) tracing email metadata, which requires court permission. Once they figured out the emails had come from Broadwell, they began tracking her movements. Then they went to court to get a warrant to read her email. Then they apparently got a warrant to monitor a second email account belonging to someone Broadwell was having an affair with. It turned out to be Petraeus. Wow. What kind of juice does Kelley have? This sure seems like a helluva lot more than your ordinary FBI attention to some harassing emails." CW: it is. I once asked that very same office -- which is the closest FBI office to Fort Myers -- to register the theft of items on which they maintain a database, & they couldn't be bothered to even respond, much less register the stolen items. Apparently name-dropping is required. ...
... Update. Scott Shane & Charlie Savage of the New York Times seem to answer the question: "... law enforcement officials insisted on Monday that the case was handled 'on the merits.' The cyber squad at the F.B.I.'s Tampa field office opened an investigation, after consulting with federal prosecutors, based on what appeared to be a legitimate complaint about e-mail harassment. The complaint was more intriguing, the officials acknowledged, because the author of the e-mails, which criticized Ms. Kelley for supposed flirtatious behavior toward Mr. Petraeus at social events, seemed to have an insider's knowledge of the C.I.A. director's activities. One e-mail accused Ms. Kelley of 'touching' Mr. Petraeus inappropriately under a dinner table." Read the whole article. That film about the Petraeus Affair? It's going to have to be a screwball comedy. ...
... Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Wall Street Journal have more detail on the shirtless FBI agent & his pivotal role in this hilarious caper. ...
... A bit more from gossip columnist reporter Michael Daly of Newsweek. ...
... Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "On Monday night, the FBI was searching Broadwell's North Carolina house. Agents entered the residence in Charlotte carrying boxes around 9pm (2am GMT). There was no sign that Broadwell or members of her family were at the house during the FBI search." CW: this bit is recounted in a few other news stories, too.
... OR, as Kevin Drum puts its, "This is pretty rich. If you connect the dots, it seems as if this whole thing got started by a smitten FBI agent; would have been closed without charges; but then got reenergized by some Benghazi-fueled (?) concerns that Petraeus was covering up for Obama. Or something. In the end, Petraeus was undone by the wingnuts." ...
... BUT WAIT, there's more. Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times: "Gen. John Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is under investigation for what a senior defense official said early Tuesday was 'inappropriate communication' with Jill Kelley.... General Allen is now in Washington for what was to be his confirmation hearing as commander in Europe. That hearing, the official said, will now be delayed." ...
... Here's the Washington Post's story on the Allen Angle, by Craig Whitlock & Rajiv Chandrasekaran.
... CW: various writers have been wondering on paper why Kelley needed to lawyer up with top Washington attorney Abbe Lowell. For instance, here's John Cook of Gawker: "It's not clear why she would need a lawyer at all, given the fact that she is a victim in this situation.... Even if Kelley simply found it prudent to keep a lawyer handy -- why Lowell? It's like hiring David Boies because your friend got a speeding ticket. Lowell is the quintessential Washington power broker. He represented Clinton before the Senate during his impeachment trial. He specializes in disgraced political figures, including John Edwards. He's the kind of guy you hire when you're seriously fucked." CW: People may be stupid, but their motives are always explicable, in one way or another. Here, it looks as if Kelley's relationship with Gen. Allen may be the explanation. ...
Bmaz of emptywheel has a plausible, novel theory: "... the handful of emails Paula Broadwell sent to Kelley reportedly did not mention Petraeus by name. This latest report at least raises the possibility Broadwell was referring to an inappropriate relationship between Kelley and Allen, and not Kelley and Petraeus. I am not saying such is the case, but it is also arguably consistent with the currently known substance of Broadwell's emails to Kelley...." ...
... General Sexcapades. Thom Shankar of the New York Times: "... a worrisomely large number of senior officers have been investigated and even fired for poor judgment, malfeasance and sexual improprieties or sexual violence -- and that is just in the last year." ...
Jon Stewart discovers he's "the worst journalist in the world":
...
... BUT, fortunately, Stewart has a sensible take on the whole story, or that is, the whole story up till 6 pm last night -- unlike the genius conspiracy theorists at Fox "News":
... Bernard Finel in Balloon Juice: "The reality is that even before Petraeus and Broadwell slept together, their relationship was a tangled web of conflicts of interest. He was one of her dissertation advisors, and her dissertation was largely about him! He managed to get her access as a 'reporter' in Afghanistan, even though she has no journalism background, and in reality was more of a personal publicist for Petraeus. But she was also a reserve officer in the Army, making her, at least sometimes, his subordinate." ...
... Finel's concerns didn't seem to bother Petraeus. Sari Horwitz, et al., of the Washington Post: "... two longtime military aides to Petraeus said that he did not intend to resign until it became clear that his extramarital affair with Broadwell would become public after the first phase of the FBI investigation of his e-mail accounts."
... AND now, for our Snapshot of the Day:
... With a bonus tweet from Friend Rupert:
... The above is courtesy of Karoli of Crooks & Liars, who has a complicated conspiracy theory in the works. ...
... CW: The lamebrains at Fox "News" Nation call Don Imus' interview of Paula Broadwell "awkward," but I think she comes across as composed, articulate & knowledgeable. Video, with partial transcript.
Frank Rich on the Petraeus Brouhaha & takeaways from the election. Thanks to MAG for the link. ...
... John Sides: the 2012 election was not a realignment, or great shift in the makeup of the parties.
CW: I think we all know this, but it doesn't hurt that Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic reminds us that the Republicans' excuse that Democrats only win because they give "free stuff" to moochers is perfectly balanced by Republicans' promises to give free stuff to their base of old folks -- and Cohn doesn't say so -- but really rich people.
Karen DeYoung & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "President Obama is considering asking Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to serve as his next defense secretary, part of an extensive rearrangement of his national security team that will include a permanent replacement for former CIA director David H. Petraeus. Although Kerry is thought to covet the job of secretary of state, senior administration officials familiar with the transition planning said that nomination will almost certainly go to Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. John O. Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, is a leading contender for the CIA job if he wants it.... Officials cautioned that the White House discussions are still in the early stages and that no decisions have been made."
Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who built and then lost the largest Democratic majority in a generation, is considering ending her historic 10-year reign as Democratic leader after the second disappointing election in a row for her caucus."
CW: I missed Jim Fallows' "morning-after" thoughts on the election, but they still hold up. Give them a read. ...
... Paul Krugman did. He adds, "... the Democrats now look like the natural party of government." BUT, he warns, "... you know what could really produce the kind of dispirited base that was supposed to doom Obama in 2012? A sellout on key Democratic values as part of a Grand Bargain. If, say, Obama raises the retirement age in return for vague promises on revenue (promises that would be betrayed at the first opportunity); if he appoints a deficit scold to a major economic post; it could all fall apart." CW: I hope Krugman builds his next column on this. Obama needs to read it. ...
... AND pay no attention to former Treasury Secretary, former Obama advisor, former Wall Street wheeler-dealer & perpetual megarich guy Bob Rubin, who writes in a New York Times op-ed: "Fiscal cliff ... blah, blah ... Simpson-Bowles ... good work ... blah, blah ... entitlement reforms ... blah, blah ... I was right ...." CW: this seems more like Obama's opening argument than an independent opinion. It is, of course, discouraging.
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "With both parties positioning for difficult negotiations to avert a fiscal crisis as Congress returns for its lame-duck session, Democrats are latching on to an idea floated by Mitt Romney to raise taxes on the rich through a hard cap on income tax deductions.... The cap -- never fully detailed by Mr. Romney -- is similar to a longstanding proposal by Mr. Obama to limit income tax deductions to 28 percent...."
CW: I missed this important report from CNN: "Less than 48 hours after Mitt Romney lost the presidential election, a shop at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. has already knocked down the price of its Romney merchandise -- by 60%."
Jake Miller of CBS News: "... almost a week after the election, it is now becoming clear just how lopsided President Obama's victory was in some cities: in dozens of urban precincts, Mitt Romney earned literally zero votes."
Time to return to ...
Right Wing World
Adios, Y'all. Neetzan Zimmerman of Gawker: "In the aftermath of last week's presidential election, residents in at least nineteen states have put up petitions on the government's 'We the People' petitioning website seeking the right to secede from the rest of the country." ...
... David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "Here's the thing about that: Red states, by and large, are moochers. They can't sustain themselves. If California were to secede, the state would have a balanced budget (or nearly balanced.) If Alabama were to secede, it wouldn't be able to pay for its stop signs."
Paul Waldman of American Prospect: whether or not it's good for the Republican party, right-wing media are going to continue to spew the usual stuff because that's what they audiences want, & the media are in business first, politics second.
Congressional Races
AP: "Former Democratic state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has been elected to represent a new Phoenix-area congressional district, emerging victorious after a bitterly fought race that featured millions of dollars in attack ads. Sinema becomes the first openly bisexual member of Congress.... One other congressional race remains undecided in Arizona. Rep. Ron Barber, the hand-picked successor to Gabrielle Giffords, had a lead of a few hundred votes over Republican Martha McSally in the Tucson-area district."
Local News
CW: As a proud Floridian, I am happy to say that --
Arizona is Worse than Florida. Ryan Reilly of TPM : "Hundreds of thousands of ballots have yet to be counted in Arizona nearly a week after Election Day, a majority of which appeared to come from Maricopa County. Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett's said Saturday that approximately 486,405 ballots still have to be counted across the state, representing more than a quarter of the 1.8 million votes cast." The ACLU & other groups are protesting lack of transparency & racial discrimination. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division may investigate. ...
Doktor Zoom at Wonkette: "To the surprise of absolutely no one, the mess appears to be at least in part a result of the state's efforts to suppress minority voting enhance ballot security, resulting in a large number of provisional ballots that must be verified by hand.... Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has pledged to ensure a fair tally of the uncounted ballots by launching an investigation into Barack Obama's college transcripts."
News Ledes
New York Times: "A military prosecutor on Tuesday said the evidence against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, presented over the last week here in a pretrial inquiry into the killings of 16 Afghan civilians, was so damning that the case should go forward as a capital crime."
New York Times: "France announced Tuesday that it was recognizing the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition and would consider arming the group, seeking to inject momentum into a broad Western and Arab effort to build a viable and effective opposition that would hasten the end of a stalemated civil war that has destabilized the Middle East."
AP: "President Barack Obama opens a new campaign Tuesday to build pressure on Congress to cut the federal debt the way he sees fit, meeting with labor leaders who want lawmakers to raise taxes on the wealthy and guard against slashing health benefits for seniors. Obama was kicking off a series of meetings this week with labor officials, business executives and congressional leaders aimed at pushing Congress to avert the so-called 'fiscal cliff' and find consensus on a plan to prevent more financial hardships next year. The week will include a tone-setting news conference Wednesday...."
Al Jazeera: "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Australia for talks on security and strategic talks. Clinton, who arrived on Tuesday, will be joined by Leon Panetta, US defence secretary, for the talks with counterparts Bob Carr and Stephen Smith on Wednesday that are expected to focus on regional security and greater US use of Australian facilities. It comes after the arrival of US Marine and Air Force units to northern Australia, seen as evidence of an American 're-balance' towards the Pacific after a decade of ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
AP: Abu Qatada, "a radical Islamist cleric described by prosecutors as a key al-Qaida operative in Europe, was freed from prison Tuesday after a court ruled he cannot be deported from Britain to Jordan to face terrorism charges." Guardian story here.
Al Jazeera: "Work has begun to open the grave of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ahead of an exhumation of his body for a murder probe, a source close to his family said."
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Reader Comments (18)
Even Frank Rich appears non-plussed to some degree. What the hell is going on? Read: "Frank Rich on the National Circus: Petraeus Affair Just Gets Stranger"
Rich said, "Adultery is not a crime and not in itself a security breach. If it were sufficient cause for termination, then the American government would not only be gridlocked but decimated. " (You can say that again)!
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/11/frank-rich-petraeus-affair-just-gets-stranger.html?imw=Y
Aah, naive little old me, thinking this Petraeus thing would merely be a frivolous blip in the World of What's-the-Next-Big-Scandal? But it keeps gathering steam and entangling more and more individuals whose apparent motives are self-serving. Now, 'the media world' breathlessly anticipates the photo releases of the 'buff' FBI agent who e-mailed them to Kelley. The plot thickens—and yet I can't help thinking this is simply all about self-absorbed individuals acting for the most part like utter fools.
The term 'Whistleblower' might need redefinition. Individuals often have extremely valid rationales for risking their careers & livelihoods by stepping forward (think tobacco industry here), vs. an FBI agent going 'rogue' to contact someone who contacts Eric Cantor, et al. has the smell of something entirely different. Is it politically motivated? Or just a bunch of people behaving badly? Inclined to the latter!
Listen. Do you hear that? That is the sound of angry little children stamping their feet and demanding to be let out of daycare so they can take their ball and go home.
Their ideology, racism, misogyny, foreign policy idiocy, domestic stupidity, Wall Street sycophancy, and general mendacity have been dismissed by a majority of American voters, sending their candidate on a one way trip to the Land of Permanent Irrelevancy, only to re-emerge in future “Whatever Happened to That Guy?” columns.
So as dust settles on them like nuclear winter fallout, their whining and screeching is reaching epidemic proportion, and they’re crying for their mamas. They don’t want any part of a country with a black president who kicked their racist, misogynist, gun-toting, bible belt asses twice in a row.
Okay, so go.
Oh and by the way. That ball you want to take with you? Blue states paid for that so you can't take it after all. We also paid for your day care, so those buildings will be demolished as soon as you leave. Also, we paid for those roads so you have to walk across open fields. And you can’t cross private property because you all have passed laws that give property owners permission to shoot to kill anyone on their land. No questions asked.
So good fucking luck and good riddance.
We’ll be so much better off without you. And you will live your sorry ass days out in pain, distress, darkness, and yawning stupidity. But don’t worry. It won’t be for long, because red staters are in the poorest health of any population group in the former United States. And it’s okay with us if you all die early deaths from largely preventible causes, because most of you didn’t want affordable health care anyway. And we in the blue states were going to have to carry your disease ridden, McDonald’s fattened butts.
But just like children, you decided to stamp your feet and not give in to that mean old black man who only wants to make sure you live long enough to see your grandchildren come out of the closet, marry other gays and lesbians from foreign countries and different racial groups, convert to Islam, burn flags while praying to Allah every Fourth of July, pass laws outlawing gun ownership and NASCAR races, and open drive through abortion clinics next to every Starbucks.
Seriously folks, don’t you think it’s the height of hilarity that states like Missouri and Kansas are holding their breath and refusing to eat their porridge because the ACC will continue to go forward? I mean, here they are, states’ rights fanatics to the point of idiocy, but in the one area that can make the biggest difference to the lives of their residents, affordable health care, they refuse to set up a state exchange and are letting the FEDERAL GUVMINT come in and do it for them.
All because a black man beat them.
Imbeciles or morons?
You decide.
Anyway, as soon as they get all the signatures necessary to secede, I say let ‘em go. I’d love to see how long Brownbackistan will be able to keep the lights on. Oh, and the next gulf hurricane that barrels into red states will be the last we hear of a lot of those people for a very long time. I guess they think BP and Exxon will come to their rescue. Well, oil and gas companies will, after all, be running those new little Balkan states. But only for purposes of draining their natural resources, only with no regulations.
Fun? Like you read about.
Sayonara, assholes.
Okay wingnuts, enough is enough. Hating on Obama is one thing but trying to kill someone because he didn't vote for the RomBot is another thing.
Even worse, the woman upset at the fact that that horrible Barack Obama person will be allowed to live in the WHITE House another four years, tried to run down her own husband. Because he didn't cast a vote for the Rat.
Okay, kids. You all need to get back on your meds. NOW.
http://kgmi.com/Arizona-woman-runs-down-husband-with-car-for-not-v/12989761?newsId=177412
Lord, Obama finally has a window to accomplish some progressive movement with the intransigent batshit right and a bright shiny bauble distracts the ADHD afflicted raccoons. Old white guys strike again. This time with 4 stars on their jackets and boinking on their minds. Jeebus, as a group, they are resilient fuckers. Feinstein and King are pissed because "nobody told me there was high level military boinking going on". They'll have their pound of flesh for that oversight of their exalted status.
In my view, the Director of the CIA should adhere to a higher standard of conduct which includes avoiding acts that could lead to his position being compromised - whether it was or not. He is keeper of some of the most sensitive information in our country. Especially in positions that are appointed not elected, accountability tends to be ambiguous. The resignation and its acceptance was appropriate. But I have one question, if the resignation was given on the basis of personal honor and integrity, why did it take until the information was going public? Definitely a deep tarnish on Petraeus and his righteous writings and "rules" about honorable conduct.
I sincerely hope this cabal will not impede any forward movement by the President on really important issues. I'm pretty sure he can find someone else to run the CIA who will be perfectly adequate.
Diane,
I think the High Level Military Boinking scandal could, if handled properly (that is, if left alone by the president), make it possible for the Obama people to do some necessary ground work and make headway on other fronts.
First, at least so far, it appears that the FBI kept the White House out of the loop, so any attempt on the part of the usual suspects and usual suspect network to tar the president with the actions of the various perambulatory peckers in this increasingly soap-opera-ish story should remain flaccid. (Ouch, sorry.)
I'm more concerned with how the president handles the restructuring of his defense/counter-terrorism/intelligence agencies. News that John Kerry is being considered for Sec'y of Defense is disheartening. As several writers have noted, yanking Kerry out of his senate seat leaves an opening in MA for the wingnuts to throw up another Potemkin candidate, a rubber stamp for conservative folderol. I don't think the people in MA can go through their third senate election (and second special election) in two years. Besides, Scott Brown, the only other person with any kind of election apparatus already in place will have an enormous opportunity to drive his stupid pick-up truck back into the senate, and here I was celebrating the demise of that racist prick.
Plus, as leader of the party the president needs to be thinking of mid-terms and '16. I don't mean that he should hamstring himself for the sake of the party's future, but the success of one could be mean the success of the other.
Let the media goo-goo about salacious e-mails, shirtless FBI goons, and faithless generals. If it appears that we had an actual security breach, it's not like the former CIA director was an Obama goon put in place to act like Bush goons. He was a guy highly touted even by Faux News talking seals. Any breach is on the general(s).
This should give the president time to put together a great big cream pie for Boehner, McConnell, et al, in the upcoming "Great Fiscal Cliff" fiasco produced and mismanaged by the very Republicans screaming about how the president should give them everything they demand because, you know, he has NO mandate,...and stuff.
More on that later...
A-K. I agree that the Kerry Massachusetts problem is quite a dilemma. However, I guess in political parlance, Kerry is owed. Not sure how anybody will stack up against Hilary Clinton at State. I don't know much about Mass. politics and wouldn't you know that Pierce has taken the week off. Wanker.
Deval Patrick stated ( Hampshire Gazette) today he doesn't want the Senate seat. 'Course they all say that. The other problem is his "principled" stance on an appointment when Kennedy died. Patrick said he wouldn't appoint an interim Senator who would run in the election to fill Kennedy's seat. That's how Mass. got Scott Brown. Personally, I hope he throws his misplaced sense of values to the wind and gives the Democrats a good head start on the election. Just don't know if such a candidate exists? Perhaps another strong female candidate might be the ticket. You know the hairy pin-up boy will be putting some miles on that trusty truck. He's already made a fool of himself against a smart female - I think he's at a disadvantage with his clothes on when it comes to the fairer sex.
@Diane. I don't think the appointment of Kirk was particularly a "principled" stance on Patrick's part. As you probably know, Brown's candidacy was made possible by a revision to the "Romney Law," a law the Democratic state legislature passed in 2004 to prevent Romney from appointing Kerry's replacement in the event Kerry won the presidency in 2004.
However, in 2009, Kennedy -- from his death bed -- requested Patrick & the legislature change the succession law to allow Patrick to appoint an interim Senator, so Democrats in Washington would have a 60-vote majority to pass health-care reform.
The state law passed & despite a legal challenge from Republicans, Patrick appointed Kirk, the Kennedy family's preference. During arguments on revising the Romney Law, Democrats proposed a resolution that the appointee not run in the election to fill out Kennedy's term. I'm not sure if that resolution passed, or if it had the force of law if it did, but Patrick followed the wishes of the Kennedy family & the spirit of the resolution, as did Kirk in promising not to run to fill the seat.
Since the state legislature is still Democratic, I'd say state Democrats can do what they want should Kerry be given a Cabinet post now. That would, of course, include repealing or modifying the Romney Law & -- if the resolution passed (I'm just not sure about that) -- "un-resolving" it.
We'll see how this plays out, but what happened in 2009 was a special circumstance, written to conform to Kennedy's wishes.
Marie
Even with the details of this scandal so well collected and summarized on this site, I'm still having trouble following them. It's our society's cultural (pop-cultural?) double standard that gets me--namely, when ordinary people do wrong, there's not much of a story. Person broke into garage, stole stuff, got caught and arrested. When glamorous, powerful people do wrong, we debate the exact meaning of "wrong" and "do." And we pass no judgment 'til "all" of the details are in. Sure, we're dining on their misfortune (or the news people are, anyway), but we're also giving them a kind of respect we show to no one but the rich and powerful. Just my useless observation....
From Truthdig - November 13th - City of Austin, Texas petitions to secede from Texas:
"WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Peacefully grant the city of Austin Texas to withdraw from the state of Texas & remain part of the United States.
Austin Texas continues to suffer difficulties stemming from the lack of civil, religious, and political freedoms imposed upon the city by less liberally minded Texans. It is entirely feasible for Austin to operate as its own state, within the United States, in the event that Texas is successful in the current bid to secede. It is important for Austin to remain in the union as to do so would protect it's citizens' standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers.
We would also like to annex Dublin Texas, Lockhart Texas, & Shiner Texas."
****************
Unfortunately, Rick Perry has squished the efforts of 80,000 Texans in their petition to secede from the United States. (The petition needed only 25,000 signatures to be considered.) He admits that he, too, is bitterly disappointed in the election and the Federal Guvnmint, but thinks Texas should hang in for awhile--I guess to see how things turn out?
I knew there would be trouble when we started
letting all of those horny
heterosexuals into the military. As a gay man with a security clearance I was always instructed to keep my lips zipped. Now I
think that, additionally, it should be added "keep your pants zipped"
when dealing with heteros. Just a thought.
Raul,
No observation that accurate is useless.
Plenty of celebrities and powerful people get the sort of benefit of the doubt that none of us would be accorded. Movie stars who drive drunk and get caught, two, three, four times, don't show up at court, get bagged doing something equally stupid the next night, are (mostly) handled with kind of treatment that no non-celebrity could ever hope to expect.
On the other hand (and this isn't to suggest a balancing affect), if one of us cheats on our spouse, it's a slimy thing, and it's extremely hurtful and damaging to the relationship, but our foibles are not spread across every front page in the western world inviting every idiot who can type to comment on the event.
But you're absolutely right about the unfairness of it all. If I stole a loaf of bread from a grocery store, I'd be locked up and have to appear before a judge for theft and I'd have a record. But if you're the president of the United States and you lie to start a war that kills, maims, or displaces hundreds of thousands?
You get invited to the Cayman Islands to yap about how great it is to be rich and famous.
Then you go home, climb into your hammock made of spun gold and human entrails and sleep the untroubled sleep of a disinterested, self-satisfied, amoral pig.
Sorry...should have been "balancing effect".
Okay, since it's not going to become a reality show, I'll borrow a line from an episode of "Prime Suspect": They're "both adults; that's what adults do." Now, can we move on? Please?
@James Singer. While I'm sympathetic to your view -- no, we cannot move on. And here's why: I have a penchant for knowing the whole story, & we certainly don't know the whole story here. I think we'll find out more in the coming weeks; already the thrust of the story has moved from Petraeus (who looks more & more like a standard-issue adulterer here & not the central character) to John Allen.
I've always been more interested in what makes people tick than in politics; in fact, for me, politics is sort of human interaction writ large. Whenever I'm inclined to say, "I can't believe you did that," I realize that I can't believe it because there's something about that person -- who is likely a person close to me -- that I don't know. Either I've ignored it or s/he's hid it.
Decades ago, a man I was in love with rejected me. I didn't understand why because there was little doubt he was in love with me, too. In fact, he rejected me numerous times, and we both kept coming back till I quit. I figured out the answer in 2008 -- after I read his obituary. I was terribly sad, really heartbroken, that he had died fairly young. But later I realized there was a clue hidden in his obituary that explained his treatment of me, a clue that cleared up a decades-old mystery for me. Maybe that's what "closure" is. At any rate, it helped me understand a dynamic that I completely missed when I was in love with him. It turns out I wasn't in love with the whole person, but with the part of the person who presented himself to me. I feel a certain bittersweet gratitude to him for revealing to me in death what he could not tell me when he was alive.
We can pretty much guess the whole story on Petraeus & Broadwell at this point, although our conventional wisdom may want tweaking. But we have more to learn about the motivations of other characters in this widening farce. And I really do want to find out how it ends. I hope nobody has to die for the revelation.
Marie
Marie
Thank-you for the info on the Mass. deal. I didn't know all that and should have stuck with my original assertion that I don't know much about MA politics. I still hope the interim candidate, should there be one, is a Democrat with some legs.
@Marie. Many of us have had affairs that didn't exactly end the way we wanted them to. Shit happens. But some of us--many most of us--have had affairs that ended exactly like we wanted them to. So of our failures, we got over them; of our successes we have pleasant memories. I refer you to the Onion: http://www.theonion.com/articles/widening-petraeus-scandal-reveals-human-race-has-b,30368/
@James Singer. Obviously, I didn't make myself clear. This isn't about the affair(s) & whether or not they worked out. Gen. Allen says he did not have sex with that woman Jill Kelley, & there is no reason to assume that his having written 15,000 (or however many) e-mails to a would-be socialite in a backwater Florida city is evidence of a sexual liaison. But it is evidence of a dangerous liaison, & I'd like to see if the media can figure out for us -- or help us figure out -- how these general officers operate & why they're getting into these entanglements with women of questionable characters & motives. I don't know the answer to that.
I find the Petraeus-Broadwell understandable & I'm rather sympathetic to it. But why Petraeus & Allen would get mixed up with the Khawam twins is another matter, and how the administration handles it will be interesting to see.
I understand that a lot of people -- probably more men than women, but I'm not sure -- are not interested in the nuances of relationships. I am. The fact that what I do here on Reality Chex happens to intersect with something that fascinates me is a bonus. Naturally, you need not check in here, & I won't be giving a take-home quiz on stories I link, so you need not pay them any attention. But I hope you won't feel in the future a need to ask me to STUF as you did in an earlier comment. For one thing, it won't do any good.
Marie
It's clear that Mel Brooks is writing the script at this very moment... You've all missed this part of the story because you don't frequent the better pages of journalism: The Huffington Post. According to Jason C, the Twins have complicated financial lives as well.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/jill-kelley-charity-david-petraeus_n_2124213.html