The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, is in a huff because she was kept in the dark about CIA Director David Petraeus’ affair with Paula Broadwell, a former military officer and his biographer.
“… A decision was made somewhere not to brief us, which is atypical,” the California Democrat told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “This is certainly an operationally sensitive matter. But we weren’t briefed. I don’t know who made that decision.”
Feinstein has loudly and repeatedly vowed to investigate.
We will all soon learn whether this incident is a witch-hunt of a warrior who served his country heroically, or the downfall of a careless man who allowed loose lips and sexy hips to sink ships. No matter the outcome, Washington’s vultures of voyeurism will lead a surge of piety that easily surpasses the firepower used in Petraeus’ military surge.
We’ve been here before, when political piranhas swarmed Capitol Hill to devour President Bill Clinton. His indiscretion with Monica Lewinsky was blown out of proportion until it became a national obsession that drove the Washington establishment to temporary insanity. Normalcy was only restored to the beltway through the levity of Hustler magazine’s Larry Flynt, who exposed moralizing hypocrites, and the levelheadedness of the American public who stood by Clinton at the gallows.
In my view, the FBI initially showed sound judgment in not rushing to judgment on the CIA director. Unless the FBI could prove that national security was being compromised, there was no compelling interest for Feinstein and others to know that Petraeus was schtupping his biographer.
Instead of worrying about real issues, like the fiscal cliff, the sluggish economy, stalled peace in the middle east, the deterioration of Russian civilization, Uganda’s “kill the gays” bill, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the European economy, income inequality, and a shrinking middle class – busybodies on Capitol Hill will spend precious time and resources investigating why they didn’t have a sneak preview of Petraeus’ sex life. (And Congress wonders why it has a single digit approval rating.)
The most offensive part of this scandal is that an FBI source first informed House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on October 27. While Petraeus was off fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cantor was undermining America by consistently placing party ahead of country. Instead of playing the dutiful role of loyal opposition, Cantor habitually engaged in disloyal obstructi
onism, holding the nation’s business hostage with his co-conspirator Sen. Mitch McConnell, who spent the last four years working to unsuccessfully deny Obama a second term.
If Petraeus had been divulging state secrets in a brothel staffed by Iranian spies, he would still be doing significantly less damage to American interests than Cantor and McConnell do on any normal day on Capitol Hill. At least Petraeus was getting the peoples’ business done, which is more that we can say about Cantor and McConnell.
When I turn on the television, it is wall-to-wall coverage of holier-than-thou reporters and pundits raising hackles and howls about Petraeus’ unseemly behavior. The breathless bloviators appear absolutely astonished that a powerful public official had sex outside of marriage.
Does it not seem rather incongruous, and a bit jarring, that only a week after the most progressive election in memory, we are descending into sexual Victorianism? As if America moved too far, too fast, with legalizing pot and gay marriage in some states, while expunging various caveman from Congress, so we needed a human sacrifice to show that we have an old fashioned bone left in our body politic.
As a gay person, I’m admittedly sensitive to overarching government investigations into peoples’ sex lives. Just a couple of years ago, good service members were humiliated and drummed out of the military because of their sexual orientation. In the name of national security, nosey investigators routinely revealed unnecessary details and divulged specific sex acts in an ignoble effort to destroy good people. Such personal disclosures are violations of privacy should be exceedingly rare and done only when absolutely necessary.
I’m not condoning Petraeus’ actions, but I am urging caution. We need legitimate factual examination, not faux titillation. We need prudence, not Ken Starr-like prurience. Sen. Feinstein, and the rest of us, only needs to know whether the former CIA Director jeopardized national security. That is all we are owed – and the messy details should be left to Petraeus and his wife to sort out.
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UPDATE: It seems I’m not the only one concerned about the privacy issues raised by this case.
“There should be an investigation not of the personal behavior of General Petraeus and General Allen, but of what surveillance powers the F.B.I. used to look into their private lives,” Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview. “This is a textbook example of the blurring of lines between the private and the public.”
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said the chain of unexpected disclosures was not unusual in computer-centric cases.
“It’s a particular problem with cyber investigations — they rapidly become open-ended because there’s such a huge quantity of information available and it’s so easily searchable,” he said, adding, “If the C.I.A. director can get caught, it’s pretty much open season on everyone else.”
Folks — this case is a big deal. The very meaning of freedom as we know it can and will deteriorate if we don’t carefully figure out how to navigate this thorny issue. If incredible technological advances fall into the wrong hands, it could become a nightmare. When every private detail of our lives has the potential to become public — we are all subject to potential embarrassment and ruin at the hands of personal political foes.
This could mean that if you run for office, your opponent destroys you by revealing photos from college or embarrassing conversations online. Or, for the average person, it might mean cutting off the wrong person in traffic. They take your license plate number and go to work investigating and undermining your life.
I’m not writing this because I’m paranoid. I’m bringing up plausible scenarios and urging policy makers to think through the ramifications. We can either control the technology — or it can control us. That is the issue we face and the Petraeus situation is a warning sign of a potentially much larger problem to come.
I don’t think Wayne understands how national security works. National security does not care if an employee has an affair, is gay, goes to a particular church, or drive a blue car.
The whole point is the ability to be blackmailed. We all doubt that the General’s Mistress would blackmail him… until the affair ended poorly; however, countries like China and Russia are always looking for weaknesses in people that have access to secrets. When they find a weakness, then they start pressuring for special consideration.
Twenty years ago when I was seeking a Top Secret clearance from the DOE, I never told the investigator that I am gay. It never occurred to me to disclose it. I was not hiding it. The personal references I gave were almost all other gay men.
During a follow-up interview, the investigator explained how personal secrets are a threat to National Security. She asked why I had not told her about my sexual orientation when ask about my deepest secrets. My response was, “Because everyone knows I am gay. It is not a secret.”
I had my clearance in less than two weeks.
I was a low level engineer at a nuclear facility. The General had access to many more valuable data than I did.
So, you are partially right in that we don’t care who he sleeps with. What we care about is when he puts us at jeopardy by putting himself in a compromising position.
Should the White House and Congress be notified at the beginning of the investigation? No. They should only be notified if there was a case ready to close that needed to be acted upon by them. Can you imagine what it would be like if the FBI notified Congress of every case they open?
Everybody knows now, so the “blackmail” thing is just so much b******t. The FBI came to the conclusion that there was no danger of a security breach. So spare us the armchair speculation.
Affairs are pretty common in the CIA actually. It comes with a job that demand secrecy and a long time away from family. As long as people are honest about it and tell it during security interviews, nothing happens in most cases.
Patraeus is only held to a different standard because he is at the top. Even granting that him resigning was the right decision, the whole media and political circus that’s happening now is an unnecessary, childish embarrassment. He resigned – that should be the end of it.
I understand quite well how national security works, but thanks for the condescention. The investigation determined early on that there was no threat. So using this affair as a possible threat is complete horseshit.
The investigation should never have been leaked. It is a travesty that this mans personal life is now on full display in the media. This entire media circus is an invasion of privacy and serves no genuine purpose, except for the phony, bluenosed hypocrites who have secret affairs in the beltway to point at the poor sap who got caught.
Again, this is why everyone hates Congress, thinks DC is full of blowhards, and disdains the media.
National security my a*s.
I think what’s most telling for me about the Petraeus affair is that he is the head of the world’s most well-known spy agency and couldn’t keep this a secret. If he can’t handle keeping his affair quiet, how can he be trusted to handle the nation’s most sensitive, covert operations?
Seriously.
LiWoo:
I kind of think its apples and oranges. In the same way a star banker can forget to pay the rent on time once or twice. The small things are often more complicated.
Maybe, though I don’t think he’d consider it a small thing in his life and he probably tried (and failed) to keep it quiet, though that’s just speculation.
To his credit, he did step down. Setting aside moral judgements about his affair and the media circus, I think it was the right decision given his position and the nature of the decisions and material he has power over.
I do agree with your premise that this is being blown out of proportion. Don’t get me started on Benghazi.
My take on Sen. Feinstein’s investigation is that it is not into the private affair of Gen. Petraeus, but into the matter of the FBI conducting an investigation and not keeping her oversight committee informed. That is required by law. They were conducting an investigation into a possible breach of security matter and it was on a private citizen. That is why she wants an investigation. The FBI is not allowed to go diving into such things without Congressional oversight.
Off topic: if anyone is interested, here are some before and after Superstorm Sandy satellite pictures of the New Jersey shore line.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/hurricane-sandy-before-after-photos/
My partner was in the Army for 30+ years and has worked with Petraeus. He always thought very highly of him and I think he was a bit stunned when this scandal broke. I’m not making excuses for anyone, but as we all know power is an aphrodisiac and men in these positions probably have more opportunities to cave into temptation than the rest of us. Again, I’m not excusing his cheating on his wife, but most of us are in no position to start throwing stones either.
Sorry Wayne, I don’t often disagree with you – but I think you should read the news coming out right now, and possibly even scrub this article. I agree that people’s private sexual practices are none of ANYONE’S business, however, what is emerging now is that General Patreus’ mistress had taken stacks of classified and “highly” classified (difference, anyone?) documents out of government offices while she was with him and was storing them in her home. Let me repeat that – classified government documents from the CIA IN HER HOME. There was a security breach as a result of this, a huge one. Who he sleeps with, not my business or anyone else’s. Who has classified documents in their house? Very much my business and everyone else’s in America. If the two intersect, then who he sleeps with also becomes the public’s business.
I’m just saying.
Reyn:
I’m not sure where we disagree. If this case is just about sex — then we have no right to know the details. In my piece I wrote:
“We need legitimate factual examination, not faux titillation. We need prudence, not Ken Starr-like prurience. Sen. Feinstein, and the rest of us, only needs to know whether the former CIA Director jeopardized national security.”
I think my stance is pretty clear. If national security was put at risk it changes everything. However, to suggest that every affair or indiscretion is a national security risk or folly.
Let’s sick to the facts. Sex — no problem. National security — big problem.