OK, maybe it's just me:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

But why is it that sleeping with a woman he's not married to is all it takes to get a CIA director out of office? I mean it seems a rather underwhelming offense given how many people who retain their positions in office *coughDavidVittercough* happen to have done much worse things and retain their position and shamelessly keep doing the same kind of foolishness they got in trouble for beforehand. In today's America where the self-appointed defenders of traditional marriage cheat on their cancer-stricken wives to establish the bases for their third marriages and where sexual mores have changed for the better, how is this is at all a cause to dismiss anyone or for anyone to resign?

Sure, it might be bad 'if they talk' but then again, people like J. Edgar Hoover got away with much more than this. I really don't know what to make of Petraeus's resignation, so I'm basically asking you guys:

If someone in that position is boinking someone who's not his wife, should that alone be enough to lead to his resignation? (I admit to gendered bias in the question here but there aren't too many female politicians involved in sex scandals yet so that can be excused). I don't think it should be and I find the whole reaction to have more to do with puritanical pseudo-moralism than anything inherent in the offense. What do you think?

Comments

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Whoa.

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

I mean, after all is said and done, it might be that everything was above the table except the sleeping around. But I can definitely understand why both Petraeus and Obama would not want this over their head while trying to run the affairs of the country.

You've already been letting this woman shadow you for a favorable biography, giving her access that walks right up to that line of keeping your countries secrets. Sleeping with her just brings up all sorts of questions that you'd rather be on a classified dossier between agencies rather than the front page of the New York Times. If he was to continue his gig, you would need the details to be so public nobody would question the situation. Now it's clear all we're going to get is that "national security was not threatened", which would also be true if she had gotten a whole bunch of WikiLeaks type data for a tell-all story waaay down the line.

(I just realized how outdated the idea of front page is. Small sad.)

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Good point. This move is actually damage control ....

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

In some ways, yes.

But considering how critical his security clearance is, I don't think he could perform the duties of his office while under a public investigation (which could drag on forever). He would basically be on desk duty. A figurehead available for photo-ops. And a disgraced figurehead seems like the worst kind of figurehead.

If he didn't step down, Obama would have publicly fired him. So it's not like he'd even get the benefit of 18 months pay pending the various bureaucracy it takes to fire a typical government employee.

If it had been his housekeeper, or maybe his wife's sister, I could understand trying to ride out the storm. I could understand us saying that it's not our place to be the morality police. It would be easy enough to prove she didn't have access to any state secrets. But this is not that scenario.

I actually saw this question play out on my Twitter wonk list. Every single person, both right and left, saying "lose your job over an affair? Crazy!" and then an hour later saying "oooh. Never mind. This is ugly and makes perfect sense."

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Exactly.