Petraeus resigning over xtramarital affair.

[cupcake3]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:11pm

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

[strummergirl]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:20pm

This is a big deal. Many Washington insiders thought he had the inside track for 2016 Republican nomination and that Obama's pick for him as CIA director was making sure he could stay away from 2012 because he definitely would have made the short-list of running-mates, at least.

[cupcake3]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:26pm

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

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:27pm

Why would an affair matter?

[romantico]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:29pm

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.

[cupcake3]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:35pm

You had better ignore Mikey, R, or your fingers will hurt from typing!

[strummergirl]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:40pm

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

[Gothampc]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:51pm

This is just a long line of people who will be leaving the Obama administration because they are tired of covering for his incompetence.

Petraeus

Hillary Clinton

Eric Holder

[strummergirl]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 3:53pm

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.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 4:44pm

^^Nobody said Petraeus was incompetent. It's Obama that's incompetent, but he will blame anyone but himself.

And it's just been announced that since Petraeus is resigning he won't have to testify at the Bengazhi hearing. How convenient is that! Hillary will do the same thing. They are not taking the rap for Obama's mess over there.

[romantico]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 5:12pm

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.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 5:20pm

Petraeus was a failure who turned the CIA into a paramilitary organisation. I'm glad to see him leave. With a new foreign policy team maybe Obama will rethink his drone campaign?

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 5:34pm

"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?

[strummergirl]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 5:39pm

Drones happened before Petraeus. Pannetta had been in Obama's circle longer. Who to credit, for lack of a better word, on the drones is him.

And if you think the CIA had never before acted as a paramilitary organization, that's just plain naive or ignores a lot of history of the agency. This ain't Operation Ajax or Operation Cyclone going on.

The one thing significant about Obama's CIA is that specific CIA missions have become increasingly depersonalized, such as the drone strikes. To quote Jane Mayer, drones in general are a new frontier entirely from what has been available before it. Nobody within the Washington circle is going to question whether to use it or not either. The question is what is a legitimate target of the drones. I don't agree that drones should be continued but I doubt it is going to change unless there is major international blowback.

Updated On: 11/9/12 at 05:39 PM

[strummergirl]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 5:50pm

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

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 5:54pm

I never said Petraeus was responsible for drones. And I'm not naive enough to think that the credit for our current drone policy belongs to anyone but Obama. I just expressed the hope maybe he would reconsider it under better advisement. I know that's wishful thinking.
Patraeus made the CIA worse. Just like Iraq and Afghanistan.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 6:14pm

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?

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 11/9/12 at 8:08pm

Sometimes I like hyperbole. That doesn't mean he's not the Antichrist.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/10/12 at 11:34am

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.

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

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/10/12 at 2:32pm

The drones suck. I have sent emails to Obama saying so. I'll let you know if I get audited this year.

Romantico, everything doesn't have to be tit for tat, this isn't World Wrestling Entertainment. Just let Goth have his say, he's not hurting anybody.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/13/12 at 12:53am

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.

[cupcake3]

Posted: 11/13/12 at 1:34am

Are they gonna start coming out of the woodwork like Tiger Woods' hos? Aaaand now, the shirtless FBI Agent. The plot thickens.

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 11/13/12 at 1:35am

Pictures or it didn't happen.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 11/13/12 at 9:03am

It's not just the drones though. He was in charge of Iraqi security force training program, and the failed surges in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The details of this investigation are crazy. And it's comforting to know that an FBI agent can legally gain access to someones private email because of a hunch. But I'm just glad the man is gone.
The Sins of General Betray-US

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/13/12 at 10:06am

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

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