Petraeus Resigns over Affair

Breaking news.

hmmm

Tom Ricks's most recent book observes that, since Vietnam forward, practically the only basis for relieving Army flag officers has been "zipper problems" and not adverse performance. Maybe this is a culture carryover...

Sad to hear. I feel bad for him and for the other party when names are named :(

[EDIT]

And I would be very remiss if I didn't say I'm sad for the families too.

Is an affair really resignation worthy? A secret affair could be leverage, but once it's out in the open, that problem is solved.

I kinda assume the thinking is "a secret affair is leverage, and this dude has proven he doesn't give a shit about that aspect, what with having an affair anyway."

The rumor is it's a reporter or a foreign national, which makes it compromising for the head of the CIA, I guess.

Live boy or dead girl maybe.

That sounds outrageous and I doubt it's anything that sensational. It was more rhetorical as in, why is an affair worse for the CIA vs. the president? I didn't mean to imply I thought there was anything particularly out of the ordinary with this affair (though a press person sounds reasonable).

Edit: To be a bit of a gossip, I'll laugh if it's Lara Logan.

PS. I'm a dick.

He should've resigned late Tuesday night, would've been completely lost in the slightly bigger story that night.

He probably had an affair as well, but it seems like a fig leaf to me. He's had people gunning for him for a while, and I guess they got something that counted.

That's a shitty thing to say.

Oh shit, you're right. Sorry. I wasn't even thinking about what happened in Egypt. I was thinking about her tiff with Hastings over the McChrystal article.

Particularly her comment, "Michael Hastings has never served this country the way McChrystal has."

My apologies for my absent minded and dickish insensitivity.

Dickish Insensitivity would be a good band name.

Who was reportedly gunning for him? Was it a Republican General in a Democratic administration thing?

Supposedly, Joe Biden and others inside the administration were against using counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, but honestly, I've stopped following it awhile ago. I can't imagine that fight is still be waged though.

I think it may actually be the affair, improbable as that sounds - he wrote Obama about it on Friday, per the Telegraph story, "apparently" because of an impending newspaper story. That doesn't mean it couldn't have been political, but on the whole I can't imagine Obama'd want to be rid of him just now, for various practical and political reasons. Petraeus'd only just been featured in some fluffy what-a-good-CIA-director piece in one of the major professional media organs, forget which, NYT or someplace.

Yeah, was a Times piece.

It was kind of a dumb thing for her to say specifically, but in general I respect her point. In any case, it wasn't so much Egypt as that I have a lot of respect for her work and it bothers me that it's constantly recast in sexual terms. I'm sure you didn't mean to fit into that broader trajectory of smears, but it was too close for comfort for me.

There's always been an air of resentment around a wide variety of your usual anonymous sources in the comments directed at him, but recently with Benghazi I noticed more of a concerted effort to attach him particularly to the fairy tale the right was constructing with the incident. One example, the concern troll in the WSJ, is linked in the OP.

It could well be. I can't wait til the Benghazi truthers get ahold of this.

Assuming the Telegraph's rumour that a newspaper story was pending is correct, and the chronology in most of the reporting - that Petraeus offered his resignation in person, and Obama only accepted it later via telephone - read together plausibly like Petraeus didn't want to ride out the story in full public glare, conspiracy angle included; his wife also works in the administration and might be covered more than otherwise for that reason. All of that works as a moderately self-contained logical story without adding in a political dimension - although of course, various people might have wanted, for various reasons, to tip off the people doing that rumoured newspaper piece.

It seems to me that the main political effect is that Fox et al are taking it as a cue to add this, Vince Foster style, to their amorphous allegations concerning the Libya attack.

COINCIDENCE?! Petraeus is set to testify NEXT week at a closed door session on Capitol Hill abt Benghazi. Did BHO push him out? This stinks!
— @IngrahamAngle via Twitter for BlackBerry®

Petraeus resignation. Timing, everything suspicious. There has to be more to this story.
— @rupertmurdoch via Twitter for iPad


I'd think any Democrat nursing an old grudge against Petraeus - who from the sounds of, eg, that NYT piece from the 2nd, seemed like he was fitting into the administration pretty well - would be conscious of the right wing's reception of the story being like that.

Short wait ;)

And Slate says it was his biographer, with an air of confidence.

"All In: The Education of General David Petraeus."

I'm sure it's really all about the affair. Having an affair is one of those things that can lose you your security clearance; when the head of the CIA does one of those things it follows that he might have to hang it up.

EDIT: Wow, that's an unfortunate book title.

Boy howdy is it ever.

At least they didn't go with the working title, "Balls Deep: An Undercover Tale."

You misspelled "the best book title EVER."

At least it didn't contain the words "surge", "pulling out" or "D.P.".

I'm torn. On the one hand, I really have a hard time choking down "I boinked outside my marriage" as a standard for resignation at this point in history. It might make you an asshole, but I kind of want the Director of Intelligence to be an asshole. I mean, he's officially king of sneaking around and doing clandestine shit, right?

On the other hand, if you can't even keep what you do with your dick secret, how good could you really be at spying and secret murder and whatnot?

On a third hand, I'm not sure I can excuse voluntarily doing anything with a writer that would do this in public:

Twitter is no excuse. Now I'm going to go pull my pants up to my armpits and remember a time when words had letters.

This is childish, and you're a childish person for writing it.

(And I'm a childish person for liking it.)

They look so good together!

As I mentioned above Petraeus' wife also works within the wider White House, seems like the families know each other a bit; add that to the fact that Petraeus' timing was rumoured to have been forced by it being in an upcoming news story, and whatever the decision is about keeping the family together or not, and the fact that the guy's apparently srs bsns evangelical protestant, and you can construct a fair number of scenarios for his not wanting to ride things out.

I think this move makes some sense as groundwork for a presidential bid...
He now knows with certainty that the 2016 field is open.
He will have 4 years to launder his association with Obama from his brand.
He can start courting supporters without compromising his obligations.
And in a way it is an "honourable" out. Leaving over a very tame affair with a non-subordinate doesn't diminish his accomplishments. He also looks less venal. He didn't abandon the CIA for personal aggrandizement, he did it to save the institution's honor or mission or whatever.

The AP story that just came out on the subject said it came out in the course of an FBI investigation into - whatever. Story mentioned Broadwell in passing. Who knows if the AP was going to run a story - if so this is pretty amended - but the interagency element is I guess one more element of awkwardness to the story. Also cues the tin-foil contingent to go back to a "witchhunt" story, oblivious to irony.

It's sad his marriage is in trouble, but it's not really my business. I've seen enough divorces to know happy people don't stray. Maybe he regrets it and wants to go back to his wife, but, again, not our business. I hope that whoever outed him gets outed for their own iniquity. Considering sexual liason embarrassment was a classic trap employed by Soviets against the United States, it behooves us as a society to delegitimize the tactic by recognizing that it ain't our business to be up in other folks business. If you know what I mean.

CIA director Petraeus or CIA director Betray-Us?

If true how else did those geniuses expect to fight in Afghanistan? Ah, just read another article where it said they were advocating withdrawal.

CIA Director Puh-ee-nus.

On Fox Krauthammer says NOW we'll find out the truth about Benghazi, since the mainstream media will be all over this SALACIOUS story.

Also, I don't blame Patreus, his wife is kinda' fugly.
Especially compared to this lady.

Yes, clearly that's sufficient reason to cheat on your wife. *eyeroll*

Well, this is something!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/magazine/a-message-from-beyond.html?_r=1&

Holy crap.

Doesn't the fact that the Soviets used extramarital affairs in their espionage demonstrate exactly why a high ranking official in the CIA should resign for having an affair? Morally, I don't give a damn.