The tough questions, really, haven't seen much of that over the last four years.....

"Maybe we should make all public figures go through a similar gantlet: the tough questions, in fair settings, without the hero-worship, no matter who the subject happens to be. Perhaps we’d get higher standards that way — or, at least, less shock when our high standards aren’t met."

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That would be good for media subscriptions, but, of course, there would be no such things as a "fair setting" and "without the hero worship" would be impossible. And that way we could get people who were more "political", more glib, more charismatic -- like a doctor with a wonderfully comforting bedside manner. After all, it's not as important that you get well as it is that you feel good being treated.

Assigning the hero label is fraught with problems. For instance a quick survey of sports personalities again demonstrates that the public sense is vulnerable to making too quick judgements to affix a role model status on one sports figure or another. However there is a way to mitigate this constant attempt to put people on pedastals and then later have to deconstruct it as life goes on.  Humans seem to have heroic moments and should be lauded for them but as even many Medal of Honor recipients expressed there is reticense to accept that label. It should be a lesson to the rest of us.  It ofter leads to embarrasing slips or undeserved self entitlement.  So I say praise the act but understand that other aspects of people's lives are off limits as part of the equation.

I thought the hero this column was referring to was President Obama. How else can one explain his re election, after such a disastrous first term? I call it idolatry, which is even worse than hero worship. Petraeus was a very effective commander, but like commanders, he was human. That should surprise no one. While it is tragic that we have lost the talent that he has, he does follow a long line of successful leaders who fell to temptation.

I too am following the Petraeus scandal because it is good to laugh again after the election results. Every day brings a new LOL, this morning's is Joanna's suggestion that political figures get vetting from the media that hero-worshipped Obama back into the White House and America over the cliff. (Love today's editorial cartoon!) We have moved into the existential absurdity phase.

"Hero worship" - Can that explain the single White women voting for Obama?

Weiss, here is a chance for a research book. It could make for an interesting read. LOL

The blindness of hero worship.... Hero worship is a feature, a characteristic, a defining characteristic even, of both authoritarian personalities and narcissistic personalities. Both of these are outcomes of a lifetime of personal development. They are thus not easily changed. Both would take mulltiple years of very favorable circumstances to change.

One can also argue that authoritarian personalities are narcissistic personalities, and that all narcissistic personalities also have authoritarian features. It's a question here of how we should best label the phenomenon.

Especially noteworthy in this phenomenon, however labeled, is the feature of "blindness"... to reality, whatever that reality is. We're talking here about states of psychological immaturity in which the individuals involved have not yet learned how to engage in independent, reality-based thinking. All their thinking is too shaped and confined by their own needs.

In children, this is developmentally necessary. In adults, it's being still stuck at a childish level of development. You can call them adult children, as opposed to mature adults. They're not yet "adult" adults.

How to have a democracy work, with "adult children" being a very large percentage of the total adult population, is the challenge we face. We have seen its alarming symptoms in the dysfunctionality evident not only in the U.S. Congress, and in Republicans and Conservatives generally, and in many Democrats as well, but also in the folks who elected them to represent themselves. It's time for the smaller number of "adult adults" we have in our population to step more prominently to the fore.

"some reasonable questions about whether the press is too deferential toward the national security apparatus" It's been clear at least since the national media played cheerleaders in the run up to the Iraq war that those questions have been resoundingly answered.

The idea that famous and powerful people are more prone to misbehave and have affairs is not necessarily true.  The temptation to seek a mistress who is younger and more attractive can happen to anyone; it's just that we hear more about the famous men who do this, to feed the beast of the 24/7 news cycle.

I don't see a sex scandal as a betrayal of the country, nor does in detract from the job Petraeus has done. It's a personal matter between Petraeus and his wife, really, and none of my business, nor anyone else's, unless classified information was revealed.

We are such sexual voyeurs in this country. We love it when some celebrity or politician is found to be in a compromising situation. We want to read about it. We want pictures. We want video from the bedroom if we can get it.

Petraeus shouldn't have resigned, and Obama shouldn't have accepted his resignation. He's a very talented man and our country would be better off if he was on the job.

Why do we have all these sexual hangups? When are we going to stop acting like tittering school girls and grow up?

Reading the title of this column, I assumed it was about Obama.

You'd think the journalists would have learned their lesson with Bill Clinton.

Another sex scandal.  Another who cares?  American's and their love affair with affairs as if monogamy was the norm.  As long as secrets weren't compromised I frankly don't care who he slept with.  The only folks who get off on this stuff are folks who never had affairs of the heart or body and folks who like to make news.  Lest we forget also the folks who like to make political hay out of nonsense.  God I wish this country or at least some of the people in it would grow up. 

Men like woman. Mostly. But even for the other kind, it's similar.

Great leaders should be remembered for their greatness, not for their appetites.