1. Aww. They seem like a nice couple. 2. She's more attractive when she's not trying to look attractive.
He won't lose his clearance just because he had an affair. In fact he'll probably keep his clearance even though he has resigned, based on his position as a former DCI and Army 4-star. Once he resigned, he will be "read out" of whatever Special Access Programs he had access to. Now, if it turns out he gave this woman access to classified information and that becomes the basis of any disciplinary action, he could lose his clearance -- you probably recall Sandy Berger swiping classified documents from the national archives -- he lost his clearance, but it was reinstated later. In case you were wondering, lots of Washington types keep their clearances after leaving government, usually through an affiliation with a contractor or think tank that does classified work for the government. The problem Petraeus is going to have -- besides the public nature of this scandal -- is squaring this with his career as an Army general (the military is death on extramarital affairs). And if there are a bunch of juicy emails or texts that become public, it's going to ruin whatever political aspirations he had. Not because of the affair per se, but because it shows that he completely disregarded the ethics espoused by the Army, and showed really poor judgement. But geez, this is so cliche.
Heck if I know. Or care. I guess once Bush was gone and the wars started getting wrapped up, maybe they lost some relevancy? I'd forgotten all about them until Alberto's post.
Talk about own goal. I wonder how the CIA feel about their chums at the FBI. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20281355
Ignominy for both of the principle figures in the Surge. Petraeus on the military side, here with the affair, and Ryan Crocker on the diplomatic side, a couple of months ago with a DUI/vehicular hit-and-run.
After seeing what his wife looked like , and imagining how stressful a position like that could be..it's no wonder he crumbled and did what he did with that reporter hovering around him for a while. And why step down? Blackmail as mentioned, the fact if you do it once you're more susceptible to doing it again(apparently)..which is a huge avenue for any foreign HUMINT officer to approach from.... Basically this
At the risk of sounding like a total pig, I sort of agree. Leaving his wife out of it, the head of the CIA and some cute young biographer can't have an affair without people resigning? She is hot. He is a 4 star General. Let's not make this out to be more than it is. He neede to apologize to his wife. Maybe she leaves him. But that's the end of it. I wish he hadn't resigned.
I don't think it's just the affair. There are articles out there saying the mistress was harassing and threatening another woman with some connection to Petraeus, which is how the FBI got involved. Also that the affair was ended by the mistress and Petraeus was obsessively pursuing her still with a thousand emails. There's a big difference between a quiet affair and one that was apparently getting as messy as this one.
Seriously. Shacking up with an embedded reporter? It's like a bad porn script. Reminds me of a guy at a former workplace who was married with a new baby. Everyone was noticing how he was kind of a dick to everyone but really chummy with a girl about 10 years his junior. Then we noticed that they left a work happy hour, not together, but within 15 minutes of each other, after spending the whole time not interacting with anyone else. A few months later, the girl leaves the office abruptly and then suddenly, pictures of the two of them start flooding my Facebook feed. And then I look at his bio on the company website and they'd scrubbed the description of his domesticity and happy marriage. Besides the dickineshness of cheating on a mother of a newborn, I was disgusted by how obvious and cliche this was.
I know, I'm just being brutally honest about this situation. 1- The reporter is attractive 2- He is in a very stressful position..probably doesnt see his wife as much as he would like to 3- the reporter followed him around the globe(afghanistan etc) and was in constant contact with him, asking in depth questions connected to the same work he is stressed and burdened with. The seeds were there for him to commit adultery. Not to say I condone it, but I can atleast see how it could have come about. Just found out the reporter was with someone as well.....
Yes, let's not forget the reporter was cheating on her husband (the guy who was taking care of their kids) while she was helping Petreaus load-check his desk.