Petraeus: Reconsidering Values

I'm sure a lot of you are aware of the situation regarding David Petreaus' resignation on the basis of an extramarital affair. My question is why this is relevant in the scope of his position as Director of the CIA. Initially my reaction was that this is a smokescreen, that something bigger had to be going on, and that there was no way a sexual affair would be considered so weighty to dismount this (very successful) man's career, especially when it is a career so crucial to the state's armed forces and national security.

It's been 4 whole days since the story broke and the 'scandal' has broadened into a shitty daytime soap opera including useless Florida socialite Jill Kelley and General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Here's the summary:
Paula Broadwell is David Petraeus' biographer.
Paula Broadwell has been fucking David Petraeus.
David Petraeus admitted he had been fucking Paula Broadwell and resigned from his position.
Paula Broadwell sent anonymous, 'threatening' emails to Jill Kelley, warning her to stay away from Petraeus.
Jill Kelley reported the emails to the FBI.
Jill Kelley has exchanged thousands of kinky emails with John Allen.
Investigators are currently poring over these kinky emails.
John Allen is denying an inappropriate relationship with Jill Kelley.
John Allen replaced David Petraeus as head of Central Command in Afghanistan.
David Petraeus supposedly sent a shirtless picture to Jill Kelley.
LOL SRSLY.


Here's my take:
Just as there should be separation between church and state, there should be separation between personal and business affairs. It is not ok to cheat on your spouse, but that is an issue that should be resolved within the marriage, not through headlines and resignations, especially when someone as qualified as David Petraeus is giving up a position that he is extremely experienced with and equipped to handle.

Just look at his wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus). Before being the Director of the CIA, he was a 4-star general with over 37 years' Army experience, including a host of commander positions. He has a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, an M.P.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton, and a completed fellowship at Georgetown. I'm not saying no one else in the military has a comparable pedigree, and I'm not saying that degrees make a person competent, but a unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, 94-0, to make Petraeus the Director of the CIA, is significant. Before that he was in command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.


Tell me, why is all of this counteracted by the fact that he put his penis in a vagina that wasn't his wife's?

Here are the reasons I've seen that support the resignation, along with my counterarguments.
1. This is evidence of poor judgment and a broken moral compass.
- Can't say cheating on your wife is a good choice, but being a bad husband does not make Petraeus a bad CIA director. I actually think the two are totally separate issues. Also, when did one's judgment in personal matters become grounds for such public criticism and subsequent assumption of not only character, but competence? I think we'd be hard pressed to find anyone who does not think Petraeus could still perform, if not excel at, his director duties, but the message that this resignation and the acceptance of it sends is that enforcing these conservative marital values trumps all else.

2. Potential of blackmail for highly classified information that the Director of the CIA is undoubtedly privy to.
- This one's easy. Come out and admit the affair, then work it out in private with your wife. No secrets, no blackmail. Done.


Now to address the root of the issue. One user comment I saw on LA Times sums it up quite nicely:
"Our culture, once again, stupidly throws away desperately needed political and military leadership by insisting on conservative religious sexual mores as being more important than effective management.

If these liaisons actually damaged security or our defense, the individuals should be disciplined, of course. But if not, I suggest would-be critics apply their irrelevant sense of sexual morality to their own personal relationships and let others work out theirs.

This travesty damages our nation more than many terrorist acts."

Ok, maybe the last line is a bit dramatic, but the essence of this commentary makes its point quite clear. Actually, I was going to expand on it but that doesn't really seem necessary.

I'll just leave you with an article that my faithfully monogamous boyfriend sent me:
Here. NYTimes.

The point of the article is that plenty of leaders in history, even some of the most successful, effective ones, were cheating scumbags, but since it didn't affect their ability to govern and lead their respective people, IT DIDN'T FUCKING MATTER and NO ONE CARED WHERE THEIR DICKS WENT as long as their BRAINS STAYED WHERE IT COUNTED MOST.

Cheaters:
Allen Dulles, CIA Director in the 50's and 60's, lauded as "the greatest intelligence officer who ever lived." (By his biographer. Lol.)
Dwight D. Eisenhower, obviously a President and a General. D-Day, anyone?
John F. Kennedy, if you need an explanation please never speak to me again.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, yep, even with the polio.
George S. Patton, General in WWII, 1912 Olympic pentathlete (Thanks, wiki!)



THE POINT: Can we please stop caring so much about who people sleep with and instead, judge and condemn/commend people based on their merits and achievements?

By this I mean to also include the irrelevance of sexual preference in the judgment of character, the measure of ability, and the distribution of civil rights. But that's a slightly different argument. Maybe we should just throw this 'sanctity of marriage' ideal out the window and see if society becomes even a tiny bit more functional.



There it is. I feel better. I know what's important to me and I feel strongly about it. Maybe, hopefully, we can start seeing some social progress soon. A lot of the election results were highly encouraging: Tammy Baldwin being elected as the first openly gay senator, and Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington all supporting gay rights victories. Even so, we have a long way to go.

Let me know if you actually made it to the end of this post, I'll owe you a hug.