Petraeus Resigns over Affair

I imagine they initially were in her email investigating what Broadwell had sent to her. In the course of that, they came across all the emails sent by Gen. Allen. Most of the news has focused on what the General sent, not what Mrs. Kelley sent at least from what I have read.

I guess.

I mean there's two issues here. The first is why they're trawling through her email. I mean there's a superficially plausible reason: you got threatening emails so we must read ALL YOUR OTHER EMAILS which is of course stupid, but superficially plausible.

But then there's the question of what the FBI is doing releasing details of her emails to the public. That's just total insanity as far as I can tell.

Adding the stuff up from that link (and the link embedded in that link), that's $126423 of the $157284 spent on those line items (the items from the embedded link were $12807 on office supplies and $7854 on the nebulous line item of 'utilities and telephones'). Not a lot left over after that to give to either research or an adult version of the Make A Wish Foundation.

I wish I hadn't lost contact with some agents I've worked with to pass this gem on. Well said.

Apparently, email on a 3rd party server is deemed "abandoned" after 6 months, which I Did.Not.Know. Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.

While I've tried to avoid a lot of this, since the details will come out in the investigation, but there was actually a pretty discussion of it on Charlie Rose last night (calm and rational with journalists and former FBI guy) it sounds to me like Special Agent Hot-For-Jill-Kelly tried to be like a tv agent/cop and have some guys do a non-official favor for him and they hit a landmine. General Allen and his wife have been long friends of Jill Kelly and her husband and the "flirtatious" comment apparently means things like signing off emails with "sweetheart" and "dear" (apparently Kelly emailed him every time she saw him on tv or the paper or somesuch). I think we all know that 20,000 pages of email doesn't necessarily mean 20,000 pages of unique content in the days of long gmail quote threads (and I suspect the number refers to all of Allen's and/or Kelly's emails - not just the immediately obviously relevant ones).

Well shit, that abandoned thing is news.

From the EFF: When Will our Email Betray Us? An Email Privacy Primer in Light of the Petraeus Saga

The DoJ thinks it needs a warrant in the 9th Circuit (California, Hawaii, Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington).

Sheezus. It's the Wives of Tampa. There's so much craziness in the article detailing Jill Kelly and her twin sister's apparent rampant fraud, millions of dollars of debt, service-dodging, child stealing (err...non-custodial parent kidnapping - I don't know why I wrote "child stealing"), and other shenanigans that only quoting a bit would be an injustice.

I lol'ed at "Tampa's elite circles" But I am a terrible snob

On the first part apparently she asked them to investigate, and if you're investigating emails you aren't going to just look at the ones she cherry picks and hands over to you. So I can see them digging through all the emails.

On releasing the details to the public: no idea. I need to re-read the news items, who actually told the press what was in them?

Wouldn't it be possible that once those emails were in the hands of the FBI that a FOI request from the media could force them into the public sphere anyways? If so, I could see this as a way to get ahead of the tide and not give the appearance that any sort of cover-up was happening, because this shit looks so bad as-is.

Crazy Twins! I predict the Bellas have found some post WWE employment in the upcoming LifeTime Movie.



Holy Crow, the Twin Sister was married to Grayson Wolfe - we are beyond the looking glass now people!

Things are happening fast now!

BEHOLD! THE SHIRTLESS PHOTO!

Ok, so which one is this guy?

seriously, Brett Farve sent a more impressive pic

Here's a handy guide to the characters in this tragedy. The shirtless one was the FBI guy that the threatened woman called because they were friends.

I have to say, whoever was trying to defuse the scandal really screwed up by not putting the context for the shirtless photo thing out there when that was leaked. There is someone out there trying to bring down the temperature of the bullshit, right?

So this just came across my RSS feed. You gamer types probably already know it.

Gen. David Petraeus Gets Promotion in Call of Duty: Black Ops II Game
November 14, 2012

Gen. David Petraeus, who resigned recently from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) due to a scandal related to an extra-marital affair (which continues to play out in the news this week) has apparently received a promotion in the latest chapter of the Call of Duty series. In the latest game - released this week - Black Ops II - Petraeus is the Secretary of Defense in the year 2025. He appears in part of the story, riding aboard the U.S.S. Barack Obama. Kotaku has a full clip of Petraeus’ appearance here.

http://gamepolitics.com/2012/11/14/gen-david-petraeus-gets-promotion-call-duty-black-ops-ii-game

Weirdly blowsy "takedown" article critical of Petraeus. I dunno that I'd be advocating "whimsically but comprehensively judging books by their covers" if my name was Lucian K. Truscott IV, no offence to the guy's grandfather.

What a fucking idiot. That editorial is awful apart from the fun anecdote about Mosul, assuming it's accurate. I'm assuming he's from this batch of Truscotts, which probably has something to do with why he's busy rehashing cliches about WWII generals. Well, that and being a shitty writer.

I'd assume grandson; maybe it's some weird Patton thing.

All told I think the Colbert Report sums the whole affair up nicely.

The problem with deniable cryptography is that it also prevents you from convincing the men with the rubber hoses that you really have given them all the encryption keys.

Actually, it's worse than that, since you can't write without putting in every key, in the naive implementation.

Nope, this shit is going to burn, and we're all going to have to smell the acrid smoke.

Gates: it's the lifestyle, stupid
http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/n...043-11e2-a30e-5ca76eeec857_story.html?hpid=z1

Well, that's an enraging article.

I wouldn't say it really shocked or angered me - I can see how the lavishness of the US military as an institution would merge with what the article calls the "cultural time-warp." It sounds like generals sort of went from the old gilded age to the new one without suffering any undue loss of grandeur in the 20th century. (I'm no expert, but certainly early 20th century European generals wouldn't have blinked.)

But I can certainly see it shocking the shit out of people who were expecting M*A*S*H.

It's more "on what planet should generals living in Washington have chefs in their employ?"

I dunno. Seems to me the most basic explanation is simply that he lusted after Paula Broadwell. There's always some media trope about how the oval office or 4 stars "went to his head" -- yet rich people aren't the only ones who have affairs. It's commonplace, only most people aren't under such a spotlight that it's national news.

Which isn't to say I'm keen on the champagne lifestyle accorded generals, I just don't see it as the root cause of adultery. Clearly Petreus simply was never as pious and perfect as his polished public image might lead some to believe.

I'm actually indifferent to the adultery or the motivations leading up to it in and of itself, and while I admire Gates for his sentiment I doubt it's going to get much traction. For one thing, if you can imagine the whine that surrounds CEO pay and just multiply that by the veteran pedestal, you know what happens to anyone who pushes in that direction. You can see a few samples of it in that article.

I'm more curious about the environmental factors that contribute to what seems like a pretty sophisticated web of bad judgement, and I think if a substantive case can be made for embedding generals in *reality* then you might have a good "military framing" for bringing these guys down a peg. If for no other reason than the fact that having military personnel serve in these positions is an abuse, not so much for them since I'm sure they are amply compensated but for the people who work as something other than butlers and gardeners on the front lines of privilege. You want to sub-contract this bullshit to KBR that's fine if you can swing it, but don't hide it in staff and headquarters personnel.

I think this is an overestimation of the prestige accorded to generals in the early 20th century. For example, the number of applicants for officer school at Saint-Cyr (in France) declined by nearly 60% between 1894 and 1914, which seems to imply that being a French officer was not considered a very attractive job. One of the problems here is that having dullards in charge of your army when you go to war is really, really bad, and you can't retain large numbers of smart, talented people on the "honor of serving your country" alone. So especially as outside options get better, you're forced to contend with the same kinds of problems that face CEO pay (up to and including the creation of an environment that contributes to bad judgement) which I note has not been solved to any observer's satisfaction either.

I'm far angrier about that wapo article than the "scandal"

I'm not particularly mad about the existence of the perks as much as by the secretive and entitled wall of privilege around them

If somebody made the argument that we need to pay top generals 500k per year and give them a personal staff in order to attract and retain the best then I would probably agree to that as long as all the costs were clear and within reason

What I object to is the way these guys form a protective barrier around themselves and do their best to make sure you don't know how expensive it is. Its will be pretty funny if a boring sex scandal tears down some of that privilege

I've seen this 4 star general lifestyle up close as I had a uncle who retired with 4 stars on his shoulder, and it's both weirder and less grandiose than the article makes it sound. Yes, generals have large retinues that do stuff like clean their house and cook their meals and drive them around. They have private jets and pilots. They have fairly nice housing provided by the military. They also need these things because of their duties. Generals have heavy social obligations. They have to attend tons of events, host tons of events, and generally represent the military appropriately. It's part of the duties. My uncle used to hate christmas because he would have to host christmas party after christmas party. Try having five christmas parties in one day and see if it can be done without a staff. Even with a staff to do the actual setup and cleanup he found it grueling. Yes, he had a private jet and pilot on call. Along with that came an expectation that he could be (and would be) summoned to meetings on another continent on short notice. He couldn't use it for vacation or to transport family (unless they were accompanying an official trip). When we'd visit him he'd have to give his staff the afternoon off and he and his wife would make us dinner on their own because we were unofficial visitors. He also didn't make a ton of money and the house he bought to retire in was nice but no nicer than the house a retiring low level manager from corporate America would get.

The lifestyle isn't super lavish, but it does lead to a little detachment from the day to day reality average Americans live in. When my uncle retired he was a bit lost at first. He didn't know how to use an ATM. He had to remember how to do basic stuff like go shopping and stock the kitchen, because the days of dispatching a minion to do it were long gone. It was a bit amusing to watch as he went through a re-orientation to civilian lifestyle.

I can see the high level generals getting a bit detached from reality being constantly surrounded by subordinates, but I don't think it's the lavish lifestyle that is really contributing. I think it's just the sense of power and going to work each day into a building full of people who will all salute and say "Yes sir." Basically the same issues found in corporations, but businesses are more likely to high-five an exec having an affair.

Other people have 80 hour work weeks as "part of their duties" and they don't have paid staff.

Plus, as Sarah Kliff points out, the 80 hour work week is probably nonsense.

Generals are basically equivalent to C level employees at large corporations. In terms of the numbers of people under them, the size of the budgets they control, the scope of the decisions they make, etc. I imagine a lot of those people work a lot and have a lot of support. It's not a dedicated retinue provided by their employer, but they have income to afford people to clean their house and watch their kids and so forth. My gut feel is that it's fairly equivalent, but then I don't know anyone at a major C level position in a big company so I might be off base.

You might be able to make the argument that the compensation covers "C" executives to be able to pay for having most mundane aspects of day-to-day life taken care of. Even going past that I could see some corporations have a special expense budget to cover those costs. However, that's still different than if the "C" guy used the workers of that company as his personal servants. It seems doubly screwed up in a military capacity because the degree of control a general has over his subordinates goes beyond what a chief executive has over employees. I assume that if a general orders some of his men to go buy groceries or mow his lawn or wash his undergarments or do the dishes, they do it and don't ask questions. That's still not exactly what I have in mind for what our armed forces are intended to be doing.

Yeah, it's not that he has them, it's that it's all at his beck and call and the government pays for it, so the cost is hidden.

That's the thing though, they aren't personal servants. There are all sorts of rules about using them only in approved fashions to further the duties of the job. I never met any of these people visiting my uncle because they'd all vamoose and not help at all when unofficial visitors were present. I have to imagine that there is room for the system to be abused, but in the long term they come down on generals who do that sort of thing.

Is it hidden? I thought federal employee pay is a matter of public record?

I don't think it's any big secret that four star generals have retinues and staff to do stuff. Being a high ranking general doesn't pay nearly as much as an equivalent degree of responsibility at IBM or GM or Apple. Salary differentials aside, there's no stock options or bonuses in the military either. There are some nice perks in terms of free staff and housing, but those evaporate the minute one retires. I guess I'm not seeing the outrage.

Frankly the best perk generals have is the ability to retire and instantly get a better paying job in the defense industry. That part is a bit worrisome and irks me, but a general having a cook and driver doesn't bother me in the least.

In response to the "but [officers] have experienced ebbs in social respectability/lifestyle," yes, famously, in the US in particular but also elsewhere in peacetime. But the subject here isn't officers, or even general officers, but the literal top-brass. It's always been a bit flunkies-and-white-glove for them, since the pre-modern era where the identity between them and the hereditary social elite was explicit.

Federal pay is public, but general's having a multinational corporation retinue of servants when they're not deployed is definitely not well known. If it takes that level of pay to keep them - which i doubt - then they should just pay them that much directly and let them figure it out.