Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The real significance of the Petraeus affair

Charles Krauthammer cuts through all the sordid details and gets right to the point:
“And that brings us to the ultimate issue, and that is his testimony on Sept. 13,” he continued. “That’s the thing that connects the two scandals. And that’s the only thing that makes the sex scandal relevant. Otherwise it would be exercise in sensationalism and voyeurism, and nothing else. The reason that it’s important is, here’s a man who knows the administration holds his fate in his hands and he gives testimony completely at variance with what the secretary of defense had said the day before, at variance with what he heard from the station chief in Tripoli, and with everything that we had heard. Was he influenced by the fact he knew his fate was held by people in the administration at that time?”

7 comments:

JeffS said...

I never had any doubt that Petreaus is hiding something. He worked for Obama, after all.

Anonymous said...

Petraeus' facade began cracking when he came out against the First Amendment during the Florida Koran burning brouhaha. He'd toss out the Constitution to make his job easier.

He's apparently revealed himself as just another a man of his time and class: a completely entitled Ivy League educated government employee for life.

David P. Goldman has an interesting analysis of his 'genius' here: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/NK14Aa01.html

mojo said...

Undoubtedly he was a fine general officer.

But as a CIA director, he is obviously a disaster. He got sent there to muzzle and castrate the agency, but he was still used to the military's deference and protection of it's generals. The CIA don't play that, especially with someone who is causing big pain. They tend to do sneaky, nasty things to get rid of them.

That is, after all, their job - doing the sneaky nasty things. And they are good at it.

THAT'S why you don't mess.

Clear?

mojo said...

PS: I think it's time to fire up the plastic spine extruder again, Paco. Bammy's talkin' tough. Boehner will be curling up like a snail about now.

RebeccaH said...

I'm wondering why so much attention is being paid to Jill Kelley and the shirtless FBI agent, when it was David Petraeus giving classified access to Mata Hari, while Benghazi burned.

Honestly, it's impossible to care about anybody in Washington. A pox on all their houses.

Steve Skubinna said...

I am wondering if, now that he's an ex-employee of the CIA, there are restrictions on what Petraeus may testify on. Be interesting to see what kind of non-disclosure agreement he signs.

Paco said...

Mojo: Paco Enterprises engineers are working around the clock to develop a heavy duty model.