GENERAL DAVID Petraeus seduced the press long before he seduced Paula Broadwell.
And perhaps not coincidentally, it was Broadwell who seduced Petraeus, according to how the media frame the story. That preferred narrative is a sign of deep mourning over the passing of Petraeus from fawned-over military genius to disgraced ex-CIA director.
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what like it didn't have a crush on the race baiting class dividing antisemetic incompetent huckster posing as commander in jefe. ma
Amazing. Are you really that partisan ? More to the point is there an adult living in your house ?
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I was hoping this article would be more about the fawning relationship between the press and military brass. Let's go back to when W used to talk constantly about trusting his "generals in the field" and "conditions on the ground" and other tough-guy-war phrases. The press would eat it up. It's as if everyone was saying, "Well we've got a turnip in the White House but at least our military leaders know what they are doing." The United States should never have been so deeply involved in Iraq or Afghanistan and part of the trouble with getting out is that we develop this cult of personality around military leaders.
The general was a manager not a policy maker. He was given a job and did it. His "surge" policy although a sort of nice try accomplished little. Both occupied countries that he had military responsibility for are still a mess, even more so than when we crossed their borders. Actually his wife's role as an government administrator helping to resettle troops returning home was and is of greater benefit to the nation. My hat is off to Holly Petraeus. Indeed General Petraeus was a pawn of those who knew they had made bad decisions by invading countries but needed some flowers on the manure pile. He was called in to do that. Maybe to some it looks better but it still stinks.
Petraeus was a good soldier. He did what good soldiers do. He followed orders and accomplished his mission. He also did a very human thing he had sexual relations with another person. The noise the carrying on is nothing more than the US's quaint hypocrisy regarding sex and the married man or women.
The presses relationship to him is nothing more than the press's relationship with any celebrity. Is he making news? Do people want to hear about it? That is all the press cares about. In a perfect world the press would quit playing in people's personal lives and care only about are they doing the job or are they failing at it. However, until the public is less interested in the bedroom antics of its leaders and more interested in what they do we'll have to be bored to death by this tripe.
..."The noise the carrying on is nothing more than the US's quaint hypocrisy regarding sex and the married man or woman." Respectfully disagree sir. This was a distraction. A Calculated Distraction.
I suspect getting caught in such an embarassing way has something to do with Petreus's fate. When your insanely jealous mistress gets caught sending threatening-sounding emails to a certifiably Snookie-like trollop, you are at definite risk of your private life being out of control.
However, when those emails (and your own) end up in the custody of the FBI and on the front page of the New York Times, you have no plausible credibility in trying to enforce the rules of the organization you're supposed to be running.
Oddly enough, we regard principled leadership in the military as more important than in civilian life (yes, from its origins in the OSS, the CIA has always been a para-military group). If we regard this as a bad outcome, though, we need to be clear that the CIA's bylaws are useful and continue acting within them. Or change the rules with eyes open to make the institution better live up to its intended purpose.
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I think it is amazing how the press handles scandals like this. They love the salacious details, but ignore the bigger story. In this case, General Petraeus testified that the CIA report on the Benghazi attack specifically attributes it to terrorism. This leads to the obvious conclusion that Susan Rice was fed a selective narrative to peddle to the Sunday talk shows. Ho Hum, says the press. The election is over, get over it. NEW PARAGRAPH: It would be like President Bush sending a puppet to Meet the Press in September of 2001, to declare that the planes crashing into the twin towers were airline errors. Obviously, Rice was given a script that deceived for political purposes. But the media is fine with that. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
No evidence of that Richmond. And your example is sort of a huge leap don't you think?
Bush sent a puppet (Powell) to the UN to make claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass distruction as justification for starting a war that has claimed thousands of lives and billions of dollars, but I'll bet that didn't stop you from voting for him a 2nd time.
same thing for Obama
Ms. Vennochi's observations mirror what I have been "preaching" to my Public Relations Concentration students at Curry College for years..."with great power comes great responsibility"...with en emphasis on "responsibility." It is so easy to be seduced by the perks of high office and to be lured down the alleyway of "I'm untouchable."
I almost always insert a quote from poet Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias":
"'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
General Petraeus has fallen victim to what I now refer to as "the Ozymandias Complex." Ms. Vennochi is correct. "Petraeus was never a god. He was always a man."
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What this proves to me is that the real problem with "Don't ASk, Don't Tell" is that it was targeting the wrong group of people.
Well said!
Sex is sex. Most people have sex. They have it with a spouse or a partner or a girlfriend or a boyfriend. It's a private matter and has little to do with the job a person does.
Petraeus probably hurt his wife, although I have no way of knowing whether he and his wife has some sort of arrangement. That's none of my business. It's between the two of them.
If national security is compromised, that's a crime. If the sex is with someone underage, that's a crime. If someone is raped, that's a crime. If it's not a crime, it shouldn't be treated like one.
But I'm a voice crying in the wilderness. Joan and her cohorts drool at the prospect of a story like this one.