David Petraeus resigns as CIA director


Video: David Petraeus has resigned as director of the CIA after admitting he had an extramarital affair.

Broadwell, who also is married, is a West Point graduate and a research associate at Harvard University. She is the co-author of “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.” (The book’s co-author was Vernon Loeb, local editor at The Washington Post.)
In earlier interviews, Broad­well described meeting Petraeus in 2006 at Harvard, where she was working on a dissertation about leadership. She said they soon started e-mailing and discussing her research.



Gen. David Petraeus: The retired four-star Army general who commanded forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has resigned from the head of the CIA, citing an extramarital affair.


In the preface to the book, Broadwell said that after Obama picked Petraeus to lead U.S.
forces in Afghanistan in June 2010, he invited her to Kabul, and she decided to turn her dissertation into a biography. She made repeated trips to Afghanistan to spend time observing Petraeus.
In describing Petraeus in a CBS News interview two months ago, she said: “He, at the end of the day, is human and is challenged by the burdens of command. . . . So, he has this mask of command — you think he’s really confident — but I got to see a more personal side. He’s confident, but he’s also very compassionate about the loss of troops and sacrifices we’re making in Afghanistan.”

Ah, yes. She can see through that "mask of command". In fact, as a West Point grad who is clearly pretty buff, she has a whiff of Domme about her that maybe the General found appealing at the end of a long day giving orders to the grunts. And one can speculate how that email exchange evolved into an invitation to check out his bachelor barracks out in Kabul, half a world away from their respective spouses, where the whiff of danger from the possibility of a Taliban ambush can make even the most devoted husband or wife throw caution to the wind and surrender to the immediacy of the moment.

Actually, it all seems pretty natural, doesn't it?  Ike and Kay Sommersby, his loyal WAC jeep pilot,  apparently had something like this going on as he saved the world from Hitler during the Big One. Somehow that did not disqualify the simple soldier from Abilene from two terms at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

But we are a lot nosier and apparently more judgmental these days. And it seems that E-mail played a role in exposing this trsyt, forcing the General to offer his resignation when he knew the scandal was about to explode around him, like one of those suicide vests he was able to dodge in Kabul.

It's sad when the Washington scandal machine is more dangerous to an American soldier than the Taliban.

Should Obama have rejected the proferred resignation?  Who's to say.  But maybe by falling on his sword, gthe General  will turn what would have been months of speculation and judgmental tut-tutting into a few days of media hype before Paula Broadwell's name becomes a trivia question answer to go along with Monica Lewinsky, Jennifer Flowers and other "Bimbo erruptions" of the past. But she's a little different isn't she?  married to a Doctor, with two kids of her own, an author and West Point Grad. She's hardly your standard issue bimbo. But will the press and public notice the difference?

No doubt the former General will fade from public view for a few months, only to suddenly re-emerge  as an "expert" talking head on CNN or FOX the next time there is an international crisis, earning a few hundred grand in appearance and speaking fees. Wesley Clark will drop one rung on the "Former Generals" booking list for all those cable news producers out there desperate for content.

It all seems a little unfair. The approach of the French to such matters seems much healthier: why take away a talented man or woman from public life based on what happens in their bedrooms (or command tents)?