Petraeus resigning over xtramarital affair.

Big deal. Not. Now the wingnuts are really going to go nut sover nothing. Who cares? It has nothing to do with Obama. We all know that EVERY politician, Dem or Repub has been "shadowed" for yrs for potential blackmail. Too bad he couldn't keep it zipped. Anyway, let the neo cons gloat. They STILL LOST THE ELECTION. It's only a matter of time before all those hypocritical closet queen Repubs get outed.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/09/15054517-cia-director-david-petraeus-resigns-cites-extramarital-affair?lite

Updated On: 11/9/12 at 03:11 PM

oops, I misspoke then. Ah well, there's plenty of other great Dems. Let the disgraceful down and dirty continue! Too bad....

Updated On: 11/9/12 at 03:26 PM

President Bush nominated General Petraeus to command U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) If the Wingnuts somehow link his personal affair to Obama then they need to be reminded about Bush nominating him.

I think Petraeus is a Republican,isn't he? I know the Wingnuts have not had a very good week and they of course will be grasping at straws. Gloating over something like this and attempting to link it to the Obama administration is pretty weak and desperate.

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Petraeus has never publicly aligned himself politically since he had long been active military, a big no-no to do, but it is largely assumed military people, especially officers, are members of the Republican Party, with exceptions like Wes Clark, Jon Abezaid, and Michael Mullen. It largely dates back to the modern Republican party being big on defense and not really anything to do with social issues. But within the DC bubble, it is not a real secret that he is a major hawk of Republican.

An affair does matter when it comes to working with national security and intelligence. He led the CIA. This is an agency that can easily destroy itself from within if there is nothing but personal dirt known to officers to blackmail others because it is an agency largely defined on secrecy.

The could definitely effect how Obama's foreign policy team within the cabinet will look like. Pannetta and Clinton are assumed to leave within the calendar year. That could change. I think Pannetta, who was Obama's first CIA director, stays a little longer.

Updated On: 11/9/12 at 03:40 PM

Aside from this revelation, how was Petraeus incompetent on any level? Not like the workings of the CIA was a daily discussion on the Free Republic.

Goth, would you like me to give you a list of those who left under Bush's first term? Let me know.

I know you are a bitter little loser this week and are bitching more than usual but your hypocrisy is just too much.

There is no 'Obama mess'. Just another lie Fox News and the other right wing idiots are spewing. Conservatives have been SO WRONG this week.

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"Hillary will do the same thing. They are not taking the rap for Obama's mess over there."

Um, Hillary has already taken the blame for Bengazhi, so what's your point?

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FBI probe found out about the affair. FBI had to get tipped by somebody.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PETRAEUS_RESIGNS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-09-17-32-07

But you said the CIA turned into a paramilitary organization under Petraeus. Frankly it is news when the CIA is not acting as a paramilitary organization for some secret foreign engagement.

There is very little criticism about Petraeus almost ever. He has been teflon and for that he became a good shield for two administrations but there is no way I am blaming two war policies on him. Buck stops at the oval office. That said, it will be interesting to see what revelations relating to Petraeus are revealed, especially in post-FOIA CIA reporting.

David Ignatius, who after Timothy Weiner and Jane Mayer does the best writing on the CIA, finds it highly improbable any of this is some Benghazi conspiracy. If anything, this sounds like something the WH wanted to suppress until AFTER the election and I even find that to be a stretch. Why have Pannetta and Clinton both rumored to be leaning toward retirement when there was not a peep about Petraeus leaving?

With a new foreign policy team maybe Obama will rethink his drone campaign?

I don't think so, Erik. The drones are the cornerstone of Obama's strategy against Al Qaida. Without the drone attacks, he'd have to go back to the Bush administration's strategy of capturing them and interrogating them, which would leave him the problem of how to interrogate them and where to keep them incarcerated.

The only other option is to withdraw completely from fighting terrorism, and I don't think Obama is willing to take that chance.

So drones are his least "messy" option.

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Updated On: 11/10/12 at 11:34 AM

I didn't realize until Jon Stewart mentioned it that his mistress was on The Daily Show when her book came out. I thought she seemed cool.

Pictures or it didn't happen.

I'm also fascinated by the FBI agent who became so obsessed with the investigation that he sent shirtless pictures of himself.

First of all, I want to see them.

Second of all--if every 12-year-old kid in the country knows that the Internet is not private, why did these idiots in the FBI and CIA think they could get away with it?

I just hope the shirtless FBI agent is as hot as the IDEA of a shirtless FBI agent...

MotherJones.com has a good Q&A explanation of it:

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/david-petraeus-scandal-explained

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Updated On: 11/13/12 at 10:06 AM