WASHINGTON, D.C. Nov. 12 (DPI) — Comment boards were alight this week as thousands weighed in — often intelligently, sometimes cynically — on the latest sex scandal to rock Washington.
Three days after Tuesday’s presidential election, Gen. David Petreaus announced his resignation as CIA Director due to an apparently long affair with Paula Broadwell, his official biographer.
Many comments expressed the view that they would have preferred not learning of the private behavior of consenting adults, even if it involved adultery.
The FBI found nothing illegal, not even a breach in security, according to reports. So, many readers asked, why is this news?
From NYT.com reader comments: “Since we’ve found out that the creator of the CIA, Dulles, was a serial adulterer with no apparent security risk. And, since we know that Ike was an adulterer before D-Day without compromising that mission. Do I have to mention Admiral Nelson and Lady Hamilton’s affair not having a deleterious affect on the outcome of the naval battle of Trafalgar. Why then do we have to force a dedicated and accomplished general to resign his post if he’s not doing anything illegal? … This simply makes no sense to me. This will only put lesser quality people in charge of our security in the future and make the possibility of blackmail that much more likely. We have to face up to the fact at some point that there are very few actual saints, maybe one in four billion, the rest of us are human.”
WashingtonPost.com reader: ” We maintain unrealistic standards for our public figures, people under a lot of pressure, A-type personalities. Let’s face it, those people are going to seek sex for a whole host of reasons, and having an attractive biographer (and let’s be honest, have you seen pictures of Petraeus’s wife?) who oozes admiration and spends a lot of time in private with him, including trips. Do you think something is NOT going to happen?”
–Was the resignation — and even disclosure — necessary?
Typical comments from NYT.com: “This whole thing is a distraction that never needed to become public. Can we please have some real news?”
“I still cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Petraeus had to resign over this. If he wanted to in order to work on his marriage and family, that would be one thing. But his personal life is his own business as long as he’s not committing a breach of security.”
–The timing of the disclosure suggests that official Washington bargained behind closed doors to announce the problem after the election.
“Maybe the disclosure of this scandal would not have influenced the election, but it certainly would have been a distraction during Obama’s campaign. What a coincidence of timing that a situation which was obvious in August is exposed in the press a few days after the election. Is there some connection between the investigation of this scandal and the lack of attention to the US consulate in Benghazi which resulted in the deaths of four valiant Americans?”
–Readers generally found the matter entertaining, not terribly important, and unfortunate — though certainly not catastrophic or career ending — for the people involved. Most readers, to a surprising degree, expressed that sentiment that the general’s transgression did not warrant his resignation. And many readers expressed sarcasm at the media’s breathless treatment:
“I think that both parties involved, Broadwell and Petraeus, in the presence of their spouses and on live national television, be forced to discuss the intimate and personal details of the affair including the specific details of every sexual encounter, place, time etc.”