Petraeus Knew of FBI Investigation During Benghazi Pushback

I’m supposed to be packing to move today, so I may not get to my post on how Big Brother and the Obama Administration’s assault on leakers doomed Petraeus’ career (though Josh Gerstein and Jesselyn Raddack hit on some of the issues).

For now, though, I’d like to make a very narrow point. According to the NYT’s reporting, the FBI spoke to Petraeus about their investigation of his mistress Paula Broadwell–and other issues–two weeks ago.

Government officials said that the F.B.I. began an investigation into a “potential criminal matter” several months ago that was not focused on Mr. Petraeus. In the course of their inquiry into whether a computer used by Mr. Petraeus had been compromised, agents discovered evidence of the relationship as well as other security concerns. About two weeks ago, F.B.I. agents met with Mr. Petraeus to discuss the investigation. [my emphasis]

So while the White House purportedly didn’t find out about this until Wednesday, Petraeus found out about it around October 25 or 26. That would put it well before the CIA’s pushback campaign on Benghazi–both the CIA rebuttal to Fox’s reporting that CIA security people at the annex did not respond right away to the attack on the mission, and, more interestingly, the 1,500 word requiem for Petraeus’ untainted image in the NYT. And while Petraeus’ aides seem to have orchestrated that media barrage, what are probably the same aides have been chatting freely albeit anonymously in the last day.

To be clear, I’m not saying that means Petraeus’ resignation was about Benghazi. I think it’s possible, but some reporters I trust insist it’s not.

But consider how different this passage from the NYT reads when you understand that Petraeus had already learned the FBI had discovered his former mistress may have been snooping through his emails–not to mention months of his emailed pleas to her to get back together.

Mr. Petraeus’s future has inevitably been the subject of rumors: that he would be Mitt Romney’s running mate, or, more plausibly, that he was interested in the presidency of Princeton. In a statement in late September, he did not rule that out for the future, but said that for the time being he was “living the dream here at C.I.A.” That was before the recriminations this week over Benghazi.

In late September–after Benghazi, mind you, but before he realized this affair had been exposed–Petraeus was still thinking about leading Princeton. But then “recriminations” jeopardized that hope.

The CIA blitz was certainly an attempt to minimize Petraeus’ and CIA’s role in getting an Ambassador killed. But it also reads, now, like an effort to preempt the damage from this.

One more note: the timing appears to be that the affair lasted for some of the period when Petraeus was in Afghanistan–so June 2010 to June 2011. It’s unclear whether the affair continued after Petraeus started at CIA in June 2011–though he did keep emailing Broadwell to try to get her to get back together. The NYT says the investigation started only  several months ago.

While that suggests the investigation may have been a counter-cyber investigation rather than a counter-intelligence investigation–an investigation into whether the Chinese had hacked his computer rather than an investigation targeting Broadwell from the start–the timing would coincide with the leak witch hunts launched by Congress. I would laugh my ass off if the same members of Congress who are bemoaning the loss of Petraeus now somehow led to this investigation with their earlier demands for leak investigations targeted at top Administration officials. Imagine how funny it’d be if in their search for blood, Congress ended up killing the career of the one person they all believed was above reproach?

Update: WSJ provides a different timeline, saying the affair started after he left the military and ended months ago, while the investigation started in the spring.

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60 replies
  1. Jim White says:

    While the short attention span of the American people and the punditocracy says that Petraeus could well re-surface politically, even as soon as the 2016 campaign, any hope he ever had of being president of Princeton or any other institute of higher learning is over. The final three sentences from a Charlotte Observer story on Broadwell put out when she was beginning the book tour:

    But she’ll hear more from the general. After her book tour, she’ll finish her doctorate. Petraeus is one of her dissertation advisers.

    http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/01/24/2953553/petraeus-bio-takes-a-close-look.html

    In academia, boinking one of your students is still frowned upon and is a career killer in many cases.

  2. scribe says:

    As I noted in the pineapple fields thread, ons should assume that the DCI’s computer and his electronic communications would all be monitored by counterintelligence personnel, to make sure they hadn’t been hacked, that he wasn’t being blackmailed, and that he wasn’t selling out the country. If internal CIA counterintel people couldn’t do the job b/c of institutional concerns (i.e., the boss says no, you can’t monitor my comms), then the FBI would do it whether he liked it or not.

    He most likely would not put operational details or really hot information on his computer in any event. The really hot stuff likely never gets to electronic media, at least not electronic media not air-gapped from the rest of the world. If he had personal emails and really hot stuff on the same computer, connected to the rest of the world, that in and of itself would be a sufficient security breach that just about any President would demand his head immediately.

    He was an ass-kissing chickenshit, but he didn’t get into the job he was in by being totally incompetent.

  3. rosalind says:

    i somehow managed to miss the fact that Broadwell is married with two small sons.

    so Petraeus sends thousands of emails trying to get her to put his needs above her family’s.

    what a Peach.

  4. Frank33 says:

    Oh the sadness of another leading member of our Oligarchy, disgraced, because of a woman. Or should we call it ironic karma?

    The CIA Espionage Establishment has been fabricating false charges, sometimes using sex, against critics of torture. Craig Murray, former British Diplomat, protested the torture. The neo-cons destroyed his career using false sex charges. Murray was later cleared.

    The CIA cooked up phony rape charges against Julian Assange. Some of the abuse and torture against Bradley Manning included forced nudity. That is torture.

    Jessalyn Raddack’s Post is interesting. But some of the dysfunctional kossacks think it is all about Benghazi. And unfortunately, the many conspiracies of the CIA, make it difficult for the scolds at DK to suppress Conspiracy Theories. Usually, at DK, you get an HR if you post a CT.

  5. DonS says:

    @rosalind:

    Surely you realize that two high energy persons (of the opposite sex, or not) find it only too easy to satisfy their hormonal urges, reinforced by a mutual sense of their superior intellectual traits and cleverness, and shunt any common sense to the side. In the field (I’m a former therapist, not that it matters) this is technically known as “thinking with the wrong head.”

    Oh yeah, Betraeus is also likely suffering from the “gray itch”, another hormonal malady affecting those approaching their golden years, even if, or especially perhaps, if they are in “good shape”. As for Ms. Broadwell, nothing special there, just a starry eyed girl on the make. Hope that doesn’t come off, ahem, as too sexist.

  6. phred says:

    “I’m not saying that means Petraeus’ resignation was about Benghazi.”

    I don’t doubt that there are myriad political angles that play a role in all of this, but at root the CIA chief is never going to survive once it’s known he’s having an affair. That’s what all those security clearance investigations are about… to make sure people with sensitive information cannot be blackmailed. Period.

    Here you have the HEAD of CIA, a married man of 37 years with a well known wife, caught with his pants around his ankles begging his mistress to come back. Whether or not this ends up in the paper, as soon as FBI or anyone else gets wind of it, the guy’s clandestine career comes to a screeching halt.

    The rest is simple political maneuvering by the vultures seeking to benefit from his demise.

  7. prostratedragon says:

    So … the original investigation was prompted by some evidence that Petraeus’s email was being hacked, and Broadwell has been scrutinized in this light, but FBI is unwilling to say that she is under suspicion, is what I get from these accounts so far.

    A Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry into use of Mr. Petraeus’s Gmail account led agents to believe the woman or someone close to her had sought access to his email, the people said. [WSJ; my emphasis]

    Getting hacked is not illegal, contrary to some other cynics I’ve seen elsewhere yesterday and today talking about the lack of charges.

    Of course charges or no, the impropriety for the DCIA of his behavior is clear, especially if Broadwell were an avenue for whomever might have hacked him, whether she did it herself or even knew about it or not. And it would be really good to find out who the hacker, if any, is.

  8. FrankProbst says:

    @Jim White I think you may be assuming that “dissertation adviser” is synonymous with “thesis committee member”. I’m not sure that’s the case. If he was just someone she was talking to about her thesis work, and she wasn’t formally a student of his, the boinking will probably be overlooked. If he’s on her thesis committee, then I agree with you that he’ll never get a job in academia. But I think he was probably an “adviser” in the more informal sense, not in the strict academic sense, because non-academics usually aren’t on thesis committees.

    Note that all of this can (and probably will) change if and when the e-mails become public. If they’re overly graphic (which it sounds like they are), or if there’s a hint of sexual harassment (which I suspect there will be–she’s supposedly been rebuffing him for a while now), then he’s pretty much done with both academia and business. No one in their right mind is going to take a risk on him.

    Incidentally, why isn’t anyone talking about Paula Broadwell? She is, after all, a reporter, and it’s just been revealed that she was boinking one of her sources. I would assume that her career options have probably been a bit narrowed by this, too. That is, of course, assuming the relationship was consensual. If the e-mails paint a different picture, she may be a sexual harassment victim, in which case Petraeus may be looking at criminal charges.

  9. DonS says:

    @FrankProbst:

    My gut says that sexual harassment by Betraeus would be a stretch — even given muddy thinking — despite the imbalance of power. He had/has far more too lose by going down that road. Now “pestering” I could easily see , , , going either way. But apparently the Broadwell husband was all about keeping a pretty low profile — assuming he suspected or found out about the affair some quite a while ago — so it doesn’t seem likely he was going to blow the lid, although who knows what took place in the happy household whenever she was home.

  10. orionATL says:

    wait a minute!

    haven’t i heard this story before?

    john edwards and the girl videographer/biographer.

    al gore and the girl vidoegrapher/biographer.

    now, it’s david petraeus and the girl vidoegrapher/biographer.

    here’s a pitch for a book contract:

    “harmones and hard-ons: how to take a good man down”

    anybody buying?

  11. Jeff Kaye says:

    This snippet from the Daily Mail article would suggest the investigation did not originate with the FBI:

    “The affair was uncovered after the FBI launched an investigation when American intelligence mistook an email Petraeus had sent to his girlfriend as a reference to corruption.”

    [Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230947/Sex-Under-Desk-David-Petraeus-resigns-head-CIA.html#ixzz2BqPFDKwT%5D

    Just vague enough to not tell us much, except it sounds like the case was referred to the FBI. The leading candidate for “American intelligence” in this case would be CIA counterintelligence. After that, we have the NSA. In any case, Petraeus would have made numerous bureaucratic enemies over the years. Or it could simply be a case of housecleaning of a security threat.

    It’s not easy to go after a major political, military, and intelligence figure, one with the power of the DCI. One thing is for sure, he was not brought down for his war crimes, and that is IMO (all schadenfreude regarding his fate vis-a-vis the government war against leakers and whistleblowers aside) the primary point to take away from all this.

  12. Elliott says:

    could it have been her husband who tried to get into Petraeus’ email account to see what was going on between them?

    I would think if you a Generally kind of person and were going to carry on a secret affair you might set up an account to use just between you too, like maybe [email protected] ?

  13. joanneleon says:

    Scott Shane is out there with what looks like an entirely different story about how this got started, based on info from an anonymous “government official” and a “Congressional official”. Later in the story there are other anonymous sources. Shane also wrote the flowery article about Petraeus that prepped for this, imho, and asserted that he and Obama were BFFs, to preempt any suggestion that Obama did him in. Shane has a history of doing fluff pieces for the admin. Convenient to put a flattering piece out there ahead of time too.

    “WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. investigation that led to the resignation of David H. Petraeus as C.I.A. director on Friday began with a complaint several months ago about “harassing” e-mails sent by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s biographer, to an unidentified third person, a government official briefed on the case said Saturday.”

    “The person who complained about harassing messages from Ms. Broadwell, according to the official, was not a family member or a government official. One Congressional official who was briefed on the matter on Friday said senior intelligence officials had explained that the F.B.I. investigation “started with two women.””
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/us/fbi-said-to-have-stumbled-into-news-of-david-petraeus-affair.html?_r=1&

    So this is entirely different — they are claiming this started when somebody complained to the FBI about emails *from* Broadwell? They do go further later on in the article about how they would have been concerned about possible hacking, but that’s not why the investigation started, according to this version of the story.

    Anyway, I don’t believe for one minute that the White House had no idea about this FBI investigation. Seriously?

  14. joanneleon says:

    Scahill retweeted this. Guy says this is political. That makes a whole lot more sense than the rest of it.

    Respond to many tweets on Petraeus; this is not about Benghazi or the CIA; this is about the elections and the holding of the information.— William M. Arkin (@warkin) November 10, 2012

  15. bmaz says:

    @joanneleon: I don’t think this is particularly inconsistent from the posture of the story by last night. More specific, yes, but not necessarily inconsistent.

  16. joanneleon says:

    Same guy:

    Petraeus; who cares?But in this case, I’m with the conspirators; this was held until after the elections.— William M. Arkin (@warkin) November 9, 2012

    I can’t stand Petraeus and even more so cannot stand Issa and the Repubs who were trying to make Benghazi into an October surprise, but this whole thing screams poltics, pay back, and a whole lot more than a gmail affair. We’re talking about war here between the Obama admin and whoever the entirety of the other side is, and we’re talking about an incredibly vindictive administration and messing with the one thing that is more important to them than anything else in the world — the reelection.

  17. joanneleon says:

    @P J Evans: When you read the various articles around the internet, you find well written and nasty comments whenever anybody brings up Benghazi. Most of the comments stand out from the others in the thread, as if some kind of rapid response team is out there whenever the word Benghazi is mentioned in a comment on a Petraeus article. These commenters sound exactly like other rapid response trolls I’ve seen around the blogs for years now.

    There are other comments from people who claim to be experienced in things military/intel, jumping into comment threads to emphasize how serious it is when officials have affairs, particularly in the intel world, and how it was mandatory that he step down, how he would have failed his next lie detector test for people with high security clearances, etc. Only a few people have written about how incredible it is to believe that other high officials in the military and intel did not have affairs in the past that were kept quiet. These are powerful, ambitious men, some of whom spent long periods of time away from their families. None of the other guys had affairs before? Come on.

    After you’ve seen these kinds of comments for years now, especially if you tend to be a critic of the admin, they have a certain smell to them. The biggest smell is that they are so confrontational and emphatic, but also you start to see a certain theme, talking point being pushed, over and over, in different places.

    And now all the juicy details being put out there will certainly distract, designed as catnip for the media and internet folks who love a good gossipy story about spies and sex. Between the prolific rapid response/disinfo commenters and the juicy details for the media, that should take care of the Benghazi references for the most part. Or if not Benghazi, something else, maybe political or maybe something that nobody wants to get out to the public. After all, it’s only the CIA and one of the most secretive admins in history coming off of a very tight and nasty election in a country propagandized to the hilt.

  18. joanneleon says:

    One more thing. This tweet from Paula Broadwell refers to @petraeus but @petraeus on Twitter is some little kid in Indiana. You’d think that she, of all people, would know his Twitter ID.

    @drudge_report Your speculation about @petraeus as a Romney VP pic is full of non-truths (but I guess you figured that out)!@rajivwashpost— Paula Broadwell(@paulabroadwell) August 7, 2012

  19. eCAHNomics says:

    @joanneleon: You’re such a spoil sport. Shouldn’t we all engage in endless examinations of belly button lint BEFORE we find out all the info that they are going to dribble out to us. Yessirree Bob. Belly button lint examination for me. /s

  20. DonS says:

    I have no more idea than the next person as to what is true here. But, contrary to those who say “Oh, an affair, no big deal” (including the truly repulsive DiFI), this IS a big deal when it involves the Director of the CIA. It’s not the same as when it might be an affair involving someone further down the line or in a different agency. Not the same either strategically or politically, regardless of who is in control of the information or how it is used.

    There is no way, giving credence for a moment to the idea that Obama learned of this only last week, that he could have sat on the information or done nothing (until after the election, of course! Conspiracy theorists might work overtime on the idea of some repub dirty tricks operation)

    Given that the info was bound to leak, if it hadn’t already, such a coverup would have been lose-lose for the pres. Regardless of how one feels about evolving moral standards and excessive prudery in American politics (that is, in word if not practice, of course), concealing/covering up such information is just not a tenable path, IMO.

    Look at it this way, when, as is probably inevitable, the info would have leaked how would one write an exculpatory statement for the pres: that he didn’t think it was significant? that he didn’t know what the FBI produced? that it didn’t impair Betraeus ability to function? I have no doubt that Mr. smooth talking Obama could have come up with something, but it would be so infinitely difficult to justify and survive politically that it couldn’t be worth it. If Bengazi was catapult into the biggest intelligence/leadership failure since Pearl Harbor, wouldn’t coddling a philandering CIA Director multiply the firestorm exponentially?

    So, I know nothing but those are my thoughts. Others here may intimate they can connect the dots. I guess I’m just slow, because I don’t get it. Maybe someone can actually fill in the blanks instead of throwing out hints and suppositions without fleshing out the substance.

  21. greengiant says:

    @eCAHNomics: dribble info? How about nuclear spam cloud with multiple twisting spin accounts? Reminds me of how the same obscure story would hit NPR, NYtimes and the WSJ on the same day, but with different authors. I take it personally, having been spun up by Time magazine’s food crisis and the Society of Rome stuff way back when.
    As for belly button lint, Petraeus needs medical help just for showing up with a silly grin on his face, much less with any woman in the same pictures. Compare it to his graduation picture with Holly. Makes McChrystal’s minders seem more competent.
    Thanks for that dailymail link.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2230947/Sex-Under-Desk-David-Petraeus-resigns-head-CIA.html

  22. greengiant says:

    @joanneleon: The professional trolls and redirection hired comment generators were talked about here…
    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/on-combatting-trolls.html
    The government agency hiring of social media “monitors” and unspoken public relations salting is also widely reported.
    Which makes any other person or organ with a few dollars able to buy the same.
    Some of the Benghazi blog blow back was directly “get” Obama. The interesting questions in Petraeus and Benghazi remain, in Benghazi, why did the executive talk the “film” line for so long, when from day one there were media and public Libyan reports of trained, organized attack.

  23. bmaz says:

    @eCAHNomics: @joanneleon: Yeah, I dunno, I actually think there should be some serious contemplation on what we are being fed, what it means, and whether it – OR the knee jerk ideological contra reaction – are correct in the least.

  24. P J Evans says:

    @joanneleon:
    The trolls tend to be pretty obvious – they all use the same points, even when they’re completely unrelated to the story. (Nothing like a story on Sandy getting trolls posting ‘but Benghazi!’ comments to make them really obvious.)

  25. FrankProbst says:

    @Phil Perspective I can’t see her getting any wingnut welfare. She hasn’t been around long enough, and I suspect she’ll be cast as the evil seductress in all of this. Because Petraeus is SUCH an honorable man that he’d NEVER have an affair unless someone threw herself at him.

  26. joanneleon says:

    Now an ABC article that says (being referred to this way in a lot of other places too) the FBI “stumbled across” the emails between Paula and Dave. But here is the new info:

    “The FBI uncovered no compromising of classified information or criminal activity, sources familiar with the investigation said, adding that all that was found was a lot of “human drama.””
    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/david-petraeus-affair-fbi-probe-revealed-affair-biographer/story?id=17689348#.UJ8O4If7K-1

    No other problems. Just the human drama. They’ve probably been reading all the tweets about why P4 (why do they call him that?) isn’t being charged like the whistleblowers

    Nothing to see here! Just some human drama.

  27. Gitcheegumee says:

    @joanneleon:

    I have had absolutely no time to follow the sturm and drang of l’affaire Petraues,however an aticle out of SF,posted three hours ago is quite interesting-pardon if it has already been referred to..

    FBI Probe That Uncovered Petraeus Affair Began After Complaints

    San Francisco Chronicle ‎- 3 hours ago

    While the investigators interviewed Petraeus for the first time in late …. McChrystal resigned after an embarrassing article in Rolling Stone …

  28. Gitcheegumee says:

    @greengiant:

    The address Petraeus gave to In-Q-Tel early this year is quite interesting,imho, with especial reference to cloud computing.
    http://www.cia.gov › … › Speeches & Testimony › 2012 Speeches & Testimony

    Excerpts from Remarks Delivered by Director David H. Petraeus at the ….. And they have become expert at translating our requirements into language that …

  29. joanneleon says:

    This article shows that the affair was really not a secret for quite awhile now, or at least that a lot of people had noticed their relationsip. It says that she attended public events with him as his guest often. If this was before she published the book, that would be one thing but if it was afterward, that would be different. And I found this paragraph at the end to be the most interesting. Is this paragraph suggesting that Petraeus was the leaker that the WH has been looking for or am I reading too much into it?

    “The CIA director had lowered his media profile, stopping his practice of emailing reporters and ending once-common background interviews by the agency. That was especially the case after GOP allegations last spring that the Obama administration was leaking sensitive material to burnish its foreign policy reputation ahead of the presidential election, after a series of stories appeared about top secret operations aimed at al-Qaida in Yemen, and Iran’s nuclear program. A White House-ordered investigation of those leaks continues.

    Associated Press writer Adam Goldman contributed to this report.”

    Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/11/10/4403544/admitting-to-affair-petraeus-resigns.html#storylink=cpy

  30. eCAHNomics says:

    @greengiant: Spending a lot of time these day exercising my nascent hidden agenda muscles. Still get it wrong a lot of times, but have strengthened them enough to avoid getting taken in by some crap.

    I am also avoiding exercising by jumping to conclusions.

  31. prostratedragon says:

    @joanneleon:
    But why blow up their own postelectoral afterglow? Not only can a good vendetta often wait, but that can be just more of the fun.

    Seems more like something handed to someone, maybe by U.S. counterintel or by someone else with an independent agenda.

  32. PollyUSA says:

    “though he did keep emailing Broadwell to try to get her to get back together.”

    Is your source for this the Daily Mail article which was sourced to Newsmax?

  33. eCAHNomics says:

    Null Hypothesis: All men do, and most women do. Not gonna argue it. Its value is that you are not surprised when it happens. Esp with powerful men, as power is a well known aphrodisiac.

    WTF???? Clinton couldn’t keep zipped for 8 years. Of course not.

    Or as another friend put it: Glad to hear there’s another female profession wo a glass ceiling.

    To which I replied: That profession is hard to fit into the knee hole under the desk.

  34. posaune says:

    @FrankProbst: Really? Sexual harassment is a criminal charge — not a civil charge? Is that Title VII ? At a university, could that be both Title VII and Title IX ? Has Title VII been watered down since 1991?

  35. Teddy says:

    Cantor!

    House Majority Leader Eric Cantor spoke to an FBI whistle-blower two weeks ago who accused then-CIA Director David Petraeus of having an extramarital affair and potentially jeopardizing the security of classified information, according to a news report.

    Cantor’s chief of staff, Steve Stombres, later spoke with FBI officials to pass on the accusations from the whistle-blower, the New York Times reported on Saturday night.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83681.html#ixzz2Btbgwqq6

  36. Teddy says:

    Who’s gonna tell Andrea Mitchell, she who so sadly broke this story on MSNBC, that MoveOn was right? She certainly seemed betrayed.

  37. DonS says:

    @ Teddy

    Why Cantor? I’m going to have to revisit my dirty tricks theory.

    Little weasel can’t keep his mouth shut either, can he?

  38. joanneleon says:

    @prostratedragon: That story makes a lot more sense to me, prostratedragon. Interesting.

    Anyway, it has both political and a foreign policy components to it. I don’t know how much of it is speculation and how much is from a reliable source in-the-know, but when you look back at the situation over the past decade, and especially from 2009 forward, it makes a hell of a lot more sense that he was working at cross purposes to the admin. Personally, I agree with my SO’s sentiments about P4 — he thinks the guy is incompetent too.

    We’ve been talking about that a lot in my house, speculating about timing of all of this. One thing to consider is that the neocons and their Romney candidate are kind of reeling right now and there is probably a lot of infighting, and after this loss, they are in a weak position. Plus it’s the traditional time in the game to do substitutions. Re: Benghazi, since this is a closed hearing, I don’t know how important it was to the admin to have Petraeus testify or not. I don’t have a good sense of that at all. But is it possible that the situation in Benghazi was part of a bigger problem of Petraeus being more aligned with neocons than the man he worked for? That’s a serious charge, I realize, but it is the charge being made in that article. The amazing thing is that he was given the top job at CIA. The article says it was a “risk” to do that.

    I feel like I need to add this, but am not quite sure how to put it so I will be vague but hopefully will make the point and maybe there are some here with some insight (which I would tend to trust a lot more than some of the people in the progressive movement who I used to trust but no longer do). There are a few people who I used to trust a lot who write at other sites and are considered to be leading voices. Some of them have warned people to be cautious with the site that you linked and with a few others that have had what seems to be pretty good investigative journalism over the years. After observing these “thought leaders” over the past 6 months – year, and the way they morphed into hyperpartisan, my party right or wrong arm of the D campaign, people who swept a lot of important things under the rug, I really have to rethink a lot of things anyway.

    The author of that article, according to the bio information, has done investigative reporting on Iran Contra. I’d like to know more about him because he seems to have some worthwhile info and is willing to write about it.

  39. DonS says:

    Betraeus at CIA, IMO, was always at least about 1) keep your friends close and your enemies closer and 2) Obama’s complex form of hubris that seems to believe by the force of his will he can make lions and lambs lie (!) together and 3) O’s continuing need to seek approval in the club.

    —————

    Funny how some whistleblowers are more equal and patriotic than others.

    —————-

    Now does Betraeus become a Repub goat or a Dem goat? Or does being mutually agreed upon as a goat neutralize party affiliation? Depends on who the goatherder is I suppose.

  40. DonS says:

    I hasn’t been too many weeks ago, as I recall, on the campaign trail that Obama started to make the assertion about ending the war in Afghanistan. Not qualifying (of course not telling the whole truth either), not hedging rhetorically. To me it was a massive change in tone. I found it puzzling, though obviously politically in line with what sentiment in the country has been coming around to. That, however, has never slowed down the war machine when it wasn’t expedient

  41. Gitcheegumee says:

    Just as a general interest item, the co author of Ms. Broadwell’s book is Vernon Loeb. Anybody remember the Jessica Lynch fictional narrative?

    WaPo journo on Jessica Lynch story rejoins paper « Media Myth Alert
    mediamythalert.wordpress.com/…/wapo-journo-on-jessica-lynch-stor…

    Jan 6, 2011 – Vernon Loeb, one of the Washington Post reporters who in 2003 wrote the botched story about Jessica Lynch’s purported battlefield heroics in …

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