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

[404.livejournal.com]

The former just happened, and the latter two happened 15+ years ago. Planning to exhume Reagan and put him on trial for pulling the marines out of Lebanon? Philip the IV already tried that with Boniface the VIII. This isn't the 13th or 14th century.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Careful, he might want you to specify which decades of the 13th and 14th century.

[404.livejournal.com]

Posthumous trials were fairly common back in the Middle Ages, and the whole Philip IV and Boniface VIII brouhaha stretched over the last decade of the 13th, and the first decade of the 14th. Boniface was even kidnapped by agents of Philip, and after he escaped, died shortly afterwards, I believe in 1303. The whole posthumous trial was convened by Pope Clement V, but it was really Philip who was pulling the strings by that point. People are a little more pliable when they know that if you cross them, they will try to kill you, even a Pope.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Doesn't explain why nobody had this kind of hullabaloo 15+ years ago. Oh, that's right, it's not about the actual people that died, it's just a cheap smear.

[404.livejournal.com]

You should try to live in the present, because the majority of people in involved with anything that happened 15+ year ago are not in office and this whole hand waving about not caring about those events is just your way to move the goal posts and obscure the present.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The point is that 15+ years ago a suicide bombing killing 300 Americans was not worth an outcry or this kind of crocodile tears and handwringing. This is far less than that, so if the latter wasn't worth the fuss, this also should not be.

It's not moving the goalposts, it's illustrating that the GOP has zero room to say that Obama was negligent and he should be prosecuted when they completely ignored the earlier incident. This kind of thing should be consistent, and common law also relies on precedent. The precedent is that 300 Marines being blown up by a suicide bomber is a non-issue. Thus Premise A (that a sincere opposition would include both issues) leads to conclusion B (the Republicans are being disingenuous over this, just as they were over the Pat Tillman issue and the whole Valerie Plame is a great heap of nothing). The only people who really give a damn are the families who lost people that day. Otherwise?

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Did Clinton try to blame the attack on a video (made by a guy who is now in jail).
Did The marines request more security but not get it?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's a tired meme that was addressed on the day it happened.

As to the latter, it was the worst civil war since the Chinese Civil War that our boys were going into. If anyone was surprised that suicide bombing was no longer something just for Hindu separatists at that point, they were deluding themselves.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

I was referring to the attack in Saudi Arabia (note the name "Clinton").

His statement the next day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0wllKURCq8
"Since our founding, the U.S. has been a nation that respects all faiths and rejects all effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others but there is absolutely no justification for this senseless violence."

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

So the problem is that the Obama administration spoke in light of early intelligence that later turned out to be premature, and corrected their statements when better facts were known?

And this is a scandal why?

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

The scandal part would be knowing that the ambassador had already been threatened and that extra security was asked for but not given (along with the part where four people died).

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

But it's not a scandal to put people in a war zone without sufficient numbers to ensure quality security and 300, as opposed to 4, people die. Because the dead people have nothing to do with it, just like the faux F & F scandal.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

but there is absolutely no justification for this senseless violence

^Do you comprehend the meaning of this clause?

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

When it's in the sentence talking about rejecting those who denigrate religious beliefs?

Sure do.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

When it's in the context of an act that really was senseless violence, no you don't.