Oh, for heaven’s sake. Just after an all-consuming election had ended, just as politicos had their heads between their knees, taking deep breaths after screen-sifting furiously through the debris of ballot boxes, when — ta-da — a sex scandal surfaces to divert national attention from serious matters at hand.
Which is not to say that there aren’t serious matters at hand in the fallout from America’s affair of the moment, that of a married, retired big-time general turned CIA director and his fit-as-a-fiddle biographer.
Among them are whether the biographer, Paula Broadwell, had access to secret squirrel stuff through her erstwhile lover, David Petraeus; whether the FBI should have investigated what appears to have been email bickering between Broadwell and a lass she saw as trying to become another other woman; whether the G-men should have told on all of them before they did; and whether the bureau too easily invades citizens’ privacy with its surveillance powers.
If these aren’t enough, the latest spin of dirty-laundry cycles has snared Gen. John Allen, the guy in command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan who was nominated to become the supreme allied commander in Europe.
That put his nomination on hold even as the investigation thus far appears to show the married Allen
really wasn’t the other man in a relationship with the non-other other woman, despite “flirtatious” email exchanges between them.
Then there’s the conspiracy elements, such as the notion among fringe groups that the FBI investigated Petraeus because of a conflict between the bureau and the CIA, and that somehow the spook chief was culpable in the fatal attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, and that the culpability would lead to the White House.
How tiresome it is that during closed-door hearings this week, legislative bodies in Washington will focus on getting the real skinny on the affair. Many members are angry that they weren’t in the loop at the start of the investigation and want to know why, though the more reasonable among them understand the need for confidentiality when allegations of misconduct had yet to be confirmed.
At least two members did know of the investigation, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Rep. Dave Reichert. Their knowledge came through a circuitous route involving an agent who was friendly with the non-other other woman (he sent her shirtless photos of himself) and who was put out because he wasn’t on the investigating team. Billing himself as a whistle-blower, the agent decided there was a cover-up going on to protect the president and told Reichert, who told Cantor. To his credit, the uber-partisan Cantor raised the issue through proper channels and kept mum.
None of this would be more than raised eyebrows and late-night TV fodder if the central figures weren’t important fellows. As serious matters now stand, the nation is without a permanent CIA director or an Afghanistan chief. And while the morality discussion plays on and on, the attention of an easily distracted Congress shifts to scandal at a time when the nation’s fiscal agenda should be front and center. Harrumph.
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Cynthia Oi can be reached at coi@staradvertiser.com.
