Tag Archives: David Petraeus

May 12, 2013 · 3:32 PM

Things go Badly for Darrell Issa When David Gregory Fails to Be a GOP Shill

Darell Issa

PoliticusUSA

Darrell Issa (R-CA) made a fool of himself on “Meet the Press” Sunday as he tried to defend his Benghazi conspiracy. David Gregory (R-TV) pushed back hard, even bringing up the GOP’s defending of security.

Issa even accused General David Petraeus of lying for the administration. As soon as Gregory would call Issa on one thing, he’d say he was investigating something else. Issa accused Tom Pickering of refusing to testify when in fact, Issa had not invited him to speak and Pickering was told that the Republican majority did not want him there. Issa ended up backtracking on that one, too, and it was super awkward when it came out that Issa never asked for him to appear. Turns out, Issa was just making inaccurate, unfounded accusations so as to falsely infuse his Benghazi hearings with nefarious dark secrets, because that is what Issa does for a living.

The worst news for Issa was that Gregory refused to be his usual GOP shill, which is an alarming indication that Republicans have pushed their Benghazi conspiracy one wingnut too far.

Watch here via NBC…

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May 5, 2013 · 3:02 PM

Utah Congressman Claims Benghazi Witnesses Are Being Threatened But Can’t Cite Any Examples

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)

The TP article below demonstrates how this has become the latest GOP playbook:  Accuse the POTUS of everything under the sun (and hope that something sticks) but proof or facts are not an option…

Think Progress

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) accused the Department of State of repeated threats and intimidation against witnesses to last year’s attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. But when pressed by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace for examples, he could offer none.

Asked about a claim by a witness’s lawyer that whistle-blowers had been blocked from testifying (a claim rejected by the Department of State), Chaffetz said that “more than one” witness has indeed been “suppressed” by the Obama administration.

WALLACE: Tell me–a direct threat, a direct act of intimidation against a potential witness?

CHAFFETZ: Yes, and I think we’ll probably…

WALLACE: Tell me one… tell what’s been said.

CHAFFETZ: There are people, more than one, that have felt intimidation from the State Department.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) quickly debunked his colleague: “There’ve been two attorneys involved here, the only reason they haven’t received information is that they haven’t asked for it yet… there has not been a request for documents from these attorneys to the State Department.”

The only “retaliation,” Lynch noted, was that one of the witnesses wants a reassignment and a promotion and feels he’s being retaliated against because has not yet gotten the promotion.

Watch the video:

As Media Matters has previously noted, Victoria Toensing, the Republican attorney making the initial claims has been peddling Benghazi conspiracy theories for months, including a November Fox News op/ed in which she attempted to draw a link between the attack and the resignation of former CIA director David Petraeus.

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March 27, 2013 · 1:53 PM

10 things you need to know today: March 27, 2013

Secret Service agents watch the audience while President Obama speaks in March 2012.

The Week

Petraeus apologizes, Obama names the first female Secret Service chief, and more in our roundup of the stories that are making news and driving opinion

1. PETRAEUS SAYS HE’S SORRY FOR AFFAIR
David Petraeus apologized Tuesday night for the extramarital affair that derailed his career, in his first public speech since he resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency five months ago. The retired four-star general was invited to speak at the event — an ROTC dinner at the University of Southern California — before news broke of his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Petraeus said he’s “keenly aware” that his actions have tarnished his reputation since then, and that he regrets causing “such pain” for his wife, Holly, and his friends and supporters. “Perhaps my experience can be instructive to others who stumble or indeed fall as far as I did,” he said. [New York Daily News]
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2. SUPREME COURT HEARS ARGUMENTS ON THE DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT
The Supreme Court is stepping into its second gay-marriage case on Wednesday, as justices hear oral arguments on a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. The hearing comes a day after a similar one on California’s same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8. The Defense of Marriage Act denies gay couples access to federal benefits — even if they are legally married under state law — because it defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The law was signed in 1996 by then-president Bill Clinton, who says he now believes it’s unconstitutional. DOMA has already been rejected by four federal courts and two appeals courts. [BBC News]
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3. OBAMA NAMES FIRST FEMALE SECRET SERVICE CHIEF
President Obama is appointing 30-year Secret Service veteran Julia Pierson as director of the agency, White House officials said on Tuesday. She will be the first woman ever to head the agency, which is best known for providing protection for the president. Obama’s selection of Pierson, who now serves as the agency’s chief of staff, comes a year after a prostitution scandal involving 13 agents and officers exposed a macho culture in the agency. Pierson’s predecessor, Mark Sullivan, announced his retirement last month after apologizing for the embarrassing mess. [Los Angeles Times]
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4. NORTH KOREA WARNS WAR COULD BREAK OUT SOON
North Korea cut off its last military hotline with South Korea and warned on Wednesday that “war may break out an any moment.” The isolated communist regime has been making increasingly bellicose threats since facing global condemnation and tightening sanctions after its recent missile and nuclear tests, and has threatened to launch nuclear strikes against South Korea and the U.S., although experts say it doesn’t have the technology to deliver a warhead to the U.S. mainland. [Reuters]
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5. NEW ACCOUNT BLURS STORY OF BIN LADEN RAID
A third member of Seal Team 6 has come forward offering details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and his account contradicts what a former comrade said in the February issue ofEsquire. A SEAL member called “The Shooter” in the Esquire article said that he had shot bin Laden as they stood face-to-face and the al Qaeda leader reached for a gun. In an interview with CNN, the latest SEAL to talk says that version of the story is “complete b.s.” The source essentially backs up the account of former SEAL “Mark Owen,” who wrote in his book, No Easy Day, that a member of the special forces team shot an unarmed bin Laden from down the hall. [CNN, Huffington Post]
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6. NORTH DAKOTA ENACTS NATION’S STRICTEST ABORTION LAW
North Dakota’s Republican governor, Jack Dalrymple, signed the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion law on Tuesday. The measure makes abortion illegal as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detectable, which can occur as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Legal scholars say the law is likely to be overturned in federal court, as the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalized abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, which usually takes 22 to 24 weeks. Dalrymple concedes the likelihood of a challenge, but says “this bill is nevertheless a legitimate attempt by a state legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade.” [Christian Science Monitor]
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7. SPAIN CONDUCTS CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OF ARMSTRONG’S DOPING
Spanish authorities are investigating possible criminal charges against Lance Armstrong in connection with the former cycling champion’s doping, which was described in a U.S. Anti Doping Agency report, according to ABC News. Armstrong lived in Spain for several years during his record run of seven consecutive Tour de France titles. Under Spanish law, it isn’t a crime for an athlete to use performance-enhancing drugs, although a conviction for trafficking and distributing banned drugs carries a prison term of up to two years and fines of as much as 400,000 euros ($520,000). [ABC News]
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8. FOLLOWER ACCUSED OF TRYING TO SNEAK CHARLES MANSON A CELL PHONE
A California man, Craig Carlisle Hammond, has been arrested on charges that he tried to smuggle a cell phone to cult leader Charles Manson in prison. Manson, 78, is serving a life sentence for the 1969 “Helter Skelter” killing spree in Los Angeles, in which seven people were murdered. Over the years, Manson has reportedly been caught with a weapon and contraband cell phones, and has been accused of threatening a peace officer. Prison officials say contraband cell phones are dangerous, as they can be used for such things as planning escapes and ordering hits. [New York Daily News]
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9. SPACEX DRAGON COMPLETES SECOND SPACE STATION SUPPLY RUN
The privately built and owned SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after its second resupply mission to the International Space Station under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. The unmanned craft brought back 1 ton of old space-station equipment and science experiments. It was launched into orbit from Cape Canaveral in early March. With the space shuttle fleet retired, SpaceX, run by billionaire PayPal and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk, is NASA’s only option for two-way delivery to the space station, but a competitor, Orbital Sciences Corp., plans a test flight next month. [Associated Press]
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10. PICASSO PAINTING SELLS FOR $155 MILLION
Hedge-fund billionaire Steve Cohen has purchased Pablo Picasso’s Le Reve from casino owner Steve Wynn for $155 million — the most a collector has ever paid for a work of art in the U.S. Wynn had agreed to sell Cohen the painting for $139 million, but the deal was canceled after Wynn accidentally put his elbow through the canvas. Cohen remained interested, however, as the work was being restored. [Bloomberg]

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December 19, 2012 · 2:54 PM

The Benghazi report: Big trouble for Hillary Clinton?

Hillary Clinton won't testify as scheduled at congressional Benghazi hearings due to a concussion.

Hillary Clinton won’t testify as scheduled at congressional Benghazi hearings due to a concussion.

Let there be no doubt about it.  This will in no way hinder the Secretary of State’s excellent record nor will it be a problem if she decides to run in 2016.

Hillary Clinton has been an outstanding public servant for decades and a few rumblings from the other side, in an effort to derail anything with Barack Obama’s name on it, will be an epic fail.

The Week

An independent inquiry faults missteps by the State Department in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens.

“So much for any presidential aspirations Hillary Clinton may be entertaining for 2016,” says Janet Shan atHinterland Gazette. An independent review board investigating the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, released its unclassified report late Tuesday. (Read the whole thing below.) The upshot? “Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” at high levels of the State Department contributed to the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. As secretary of state, that’s a pretty big stain on Clinton’s reputation.

The board, led by former diplomat Thomas Pickering and retired Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, eventually concluded that blame for the American deaths rests “solely and completely with the terrorists,” and pointedly “did not find reasonable cause to determine that any individual U.S. government employee breached his or her duty.” But the board did fault the State Department for relying on unseasoned U.S. security personnel and Libyan militias to protect Stevens, ignoring requests for more guards, failing to make needed security upgrades, not adjusting to the deteriorating situation in Benghazi, and for poor intra-agency coordination. Clinton was expected to testify before Congress about the report on Thursday, but begged out, citing a concussion sustained during a fall last week while she was fighting a stomach bug.

Conservatives aren’t buying it. With U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice pulling out of the running for Clinton’s job and CIA Director David Petraeus ousted amid a sex scandal, “Clinton is the latest scapegoat for ongoing frustrations over Benghazi,” says Alexander Abad-Santos at The Atlantic Wire. And since the report declined to name new victims to destroy in their Benghazi-gate crusade, they’re making do with “Concussiongate.”

Well really, Clinton is bowing out from yet another round of Benghazi hearings, this time because of a supposed concussion, “and we’re supposed to just take her word for it”? says Jim Treacher at The Daily Caller. “If she has a concussion, let’s see the medical report.” Imagine the outrage if Clinton predecessors Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice had called in sick for Iraq War hearings. Yes, “Clinton’s story beggars belief,” says the New York Post in an editorial. Thissupposed concussion “looks like one of the most transparent dodges in the history of diplomacy,” and Republicans must insist she testify later if not now.

Give me a break, says Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice. Clinton is faking an illness? Theseconservatives “are fixated on creating crises where they aren’t any,” and doing so in a “cravenly partisan” manner. Congratulations, or something: Your paranoia has earned you a coveted spot in our “Get a Life” club.

In the end, Clinton will probably emerge from this relatively unscathed, says The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Before she gets another chance to testify, she will likely “leave the Obama cabinet with sky-high approval ratings and an eye on the 2016 presidential nomination,” and at this point, “it’s logical for her not to want to dwell on the worst debacle of her tenure at State.”

Read the report for yourself:

Benghazi Report

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December 1, 2012 · 12:05 AM

Week in one liners: Biden, Cain, Carney

Politico

The top quotes in politics …

“I’m looking for pies.” —Vice President Joe Biden at Costco.

“He said he wouldn’t play me but I could play on his team.” — Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III on challenging Obama to a basketball game.

“Last week The Onion said I was going to become a male stripper.”  — Education Secretary Arne Duncan responding to questions about his future.

“It’s a cultural icon! Or something.” — Former White House hopeful Herman Cain on his 9-9-9 tax plan.

“I screwed up royally.”— Ex-CIA director David Petraeus in a letter about his affair.

“The only good thing about Grover Norquist is he’s named after a character from ‘Sesame Street.’”  — Former Pres. George W. Bush adviser Matthew Dowd going after the anti-tax activist.

“The notion that you can solve all problems over a cocktail I think is a little overrated.” — WH press secretary Jay Carney on the importance of socialization with lawmakers.

“I got beer!” — Small business owner Deborah Carey discovering bottles of White House home brew in her swag bag.

 

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November 19, 2012 · 9:09 AM

10 things you need to know today: November 19, 2012

The Week

Obama makes a historic visit to Myanmar, the civilian toll rises in Gaza, and more in our roundup of the stories that are making news and driving opinion

Israeli soldiers prepare an artillery emplacement overlooking Gaza on Nov. 19.

Israeli soldiers prepare an artillery emplacement overlooking Gaza on Nov. 19.

1. OBAMA MAKES HISTORIC MYANMAR VISIT
On Monday, President Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Myanmar, aiming to encourage the country, also known as Burma, to continue implementing democratic reforms and shake off the international isolation that came with decades of military rule. Obama met with both President Thein Sein, a former junta member who has presided over reforms since taking office in March 2011, and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Obama, who has sent the first U.S. ambassador in 22 years to Myanmar and eased sanctions, said he had come to “extend the hand of friendship,” adding that “the flickers of progress that we have seen must not be extinguished.” The visit comes as part of a three-day Southeast Asia trip aiming to demonstrate Obama’s commitment to the region in a bid to counter China’s rising influence. [New York Times]
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2. ISRAEL’S GAZA ASSAULT TAKES MOUNTING TOLL
Israel’s air strikes continued for a sixth day in the densely populated Gaza Strip on Monday, pushing the civilian toll to 91. After warning that it would step up strikes on the homes of suspected Hamas activists, Israel fired missiles on Sunday that destroyed a two-story house, killing 11 people, mostly women and children. Israel says its campaign is focused on hitting “terror sites” used by Islamist militants who have been firing rockets into Israel, and President Obama has backed Israel’s right to defend itself. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is traveling to neighboring Egypt, which is trying to broker a peace between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza. [Washington Post]
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3. GLOBAL STOCKS LIFTED BY FISCAL CLIFF TALKS
Stock markets rebounded around the world early Monday thanks partly to apparent progress made in talks between President Obama and congressional leaders on avoiding the fiscal cliff. There was a global sell-off last week as investors became increasingly worried that gridlock in Washington would prevent Congress from reaching a deficit reduction deal that would avert $600 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes scheduled to hit on Jan. 1, potentially sending the U.S. economy back into recession. But the mood shifted after congressional leaders left a Friday meeting at the White House expressing confidence they could reach an agreement. [Reuters]
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4. PETRAEUS HIRES LAWYER
Former CIA director General David Petraeus has hired a high-powered Washington lawyer, Robert Barnett, to help him map out a future following the exposure of his career-ending extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Barnett is best known for his work negotiating book deals for the nation’s biggest political stars, including President Obama and former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Politico reported that no Petraeus book is in the works, though. Petraeus, who testified Friday before congressional committees on the deadly Sept. 11 Benghazi attack, is under investigation by the CIA, the Justice Department, and Congress. [Reuters]
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5. ACTIVISTS PROTEST KEYSTONE PIPELINE
More than 3,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., on Sunday to urge President Obama to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Mitt Romney had vowed to approve construction of the 1,700-mile pipeline, saying it would be a huge job creator, but Obama has dismissed pressure from Republicans to rush the matter, saying the administration needed to take sufficient time to assess the potential for environmental damage and other problems from the pipeline, which would extend from Alberta, Canada’s tar sands to refineries on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. [CNN]
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6. SOLDIER FACES CHARGES FOR IRAQ RAMPAGE
A U.S. soldier will face charges Monday for a 2009 shooting spree in Baghdad that killed five fellow U.S. servicemen. The arraignment hearing is a step toward a trial that could result in the death penalty. Sgt. John Russell is accused of five counts of premeditated murder in a case that military leaders said may have been triggered by combat stress. Russell’s lawyer has said his client could face execution “because the Army’s mental health system failed him.” [Reuters]
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7. ROMNEY LATINO SURROGATE REJECTS “GIFTS” CLAIM
One of Mitt Romney’s top Latino campaign surrogates, Carlos Gutierrez, expressed outrage on Sunday over the former GOP presidential candidate’s assertion that minorities voted for President Obama because he gave them “gifts,” such as health-care reform and college-loan interest forgiveness. “I was shocked. And frankly I don’t think that’s why Republicans lost the election,” Gutierrez told CNN. “I think we lost the election because the far right of this party has taken the party to a place that it doesn’t belong.”
[Huffington Post]
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8. WALMART COUNTERS BLACK FRIDAY STRIKE
In a rare move, Walmart has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in a bid to stop a union-backed group from staging protests against the company on Black Friday, the launch of the holiday shopping season and the discount chain’s busiest day of the year. The group, known as OUR Walmart, is planning to demand better pay and benefits for Walmart workers by staging demonstrations online and outside hundreds of Walmart stores. [New York Times]
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9. FINAL TWILIGHT FILM RULES BOX OFFICE
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 steamrolled the competition at the box office, grossing $141 million in its opening weekend. The fifth and final film in the wildly popular vampire franchise easily swept past Skyfall, which last week posted the best debut ever for a James Bond film. (Skyfall hauled in $41.5 million over the weekend). Breaking Dawn — Part 2 boasts the eighth highest-grossing opening ever, and the fourth highest of 2012, but it fell just short of New Moon‘s 2009 record ($143 million) for best Twilight opening weekend. [TV Guide]
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10. BIEBER RULES MUSIC AWARDS
Teen superstar Justin Bieber dominated Sunday night’s American Music Awards, winning favorite pop/rock artist and album awards as well as the ceremony’s top prize, artist of the year. The night’s most flashy performance came from Korean rapper PSY and MC Hammer, who teamed up to perform the South Korean pop star’s viral hit Gangnam Style. Still, the 18-year-old Bieber, who performed solo and with Nicki Minaj, came out the big winner. “I want to say this is for all the haters who thought I was just here for one or two years,” Bieber said. “I feel like I’m going to be here for a very long time.” [Associated Press]

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November 14, 2012 · 11:23 AM

Fox News Goes Full Metal Tin Foil Hat with Claim Obama Blackmailed Petraeus

Apparently Fox Noise (Fox News) has doubled down with their conspiracy theories about President Obama and their Benghazi fantasies in which they envision an impeached POTUS by dismissing the accusations about their “media bubble” and other such descriptions by  mainstream media types.

These people will not give up until President Obama is out of office. Heck, even when his next four years have been completed, they will continue to try to discredit his record in perpetuum…

Politicususa

Fox News has taken their conspiracy claims for impeachment to new crazy places by claiming that Obama blackmailed Petraeus in order cover up Benghazi.

Here is the video from Media Matters…

Steve Doocy said, ‘Clinton and Petraeus both have got to testify. That’s just all there is. Otherwise the investigation would not be an investigation. It would not be complete.  Also, we told you earlier that Bill Kristol had sources in the testimony that Petraeus gave on September fourteenth, and apparently Mr. Petraeus said, do you want the party line, or do you want the real truth…To some it does look like you know, was he going along? Was he doing the what’s in the best interests of national security, or was he, and some feel this, was he being blackmailed by the White House to toe the company line? Those are the things that can only be found out if you ask him directly.”

This has all the hallmarks of a Fox News conspiracy theory. Message delivered by the morning propaganda team at Fox and Friends? Check. The use of the phrases to some it does look like, and some feel this? Check. The absolute absence of any facts? Check. Anonymous sources from fellow News Corp employees? Check.

In case it wasn’t obvious where this is going, Rush Limbaugh explicitly stated it yesterday on his radio show, “And this Benghazi story, it finally has legs, lots of legs. Have you seen ‘em in Tampa? Broadbeam, Broadwell, whatever her name is. You know, the one good thing, folks, about all of this is that a sex scandal might make some people finally hear about Benghazi, because the media is all over this. It is a sex story that they just can’t ignore. And even the lowest of the low-information voters might finally hear about what happened in Benghazi because of this. That’s why I said, you know, words and policy, we kind of exhausted it. We’re just gonna have to wait for events to overtake the regime.”

The right is hoping that the sex scandal will hook the American people, and then they will be outraged when they learn about Benghazi.

The right is still clinging on their delusion that they can take Obama down if the American people learn the “truth” about Obama. To the absolute surprise of no one, the far right has responded to Obama’s reelection by redoubling their efforts to destroy him. The right wing media is trying to invent a connection between Petraeus and Benghazi because they still believe that Benghazi is their golden ticket to Obama impeachment.

Impeachment is what this is all about. The right wing media is trying to string together enough random facts to give the House Republicans “cause” for impeachment. This Petraeus/Benghazi/Obama conspiracy theory is the deepest manifestation yet of the right’s collective mental illness over the defeat of Mitt Romney.

These people really believed that the polls were skewed, and that they were going to win. They are dreaming of impeachment, because for them the election isn’t over. They are still looking for a way to win.

They have not learned a thing from the 2012 election.

The only that has changed after Obama’s election is that the right is even more obsessed with the destruction of President Obama.

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· 9:03 AM

Four Great Political Scandal Movies

John Travolta and Adrian Lester in Primary Colors.

Full disclosure…

I’m a political movie fanatic so this article caught my eye and I wanted to share it with any fellow political movie devotees out there.

Granted, this list consists of political scandal movies but that’s ok as long as politics is a part of the main storyline.

Slate

Since word broke on Friday that CIA director David Petraeus was resigning his post because of an affair with biographer Paula Broadwell, the news cycle has whiplashed from one theory to another, trying to figure out what exactly this scandal is about: Is it about classified information? A scheming professional climber? Proof that the FBI is abusing its power to investigate the private lives of public figures? An example of military culture gone awry? As the who, what, where, and whys continue to unravel and we all sweat to keep up, here are four movies that go a long way toward explaining the sexual culture of Washington and the powerful men who live it.

1. The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979): A must-see, if only for the sight of Alan Alda and Meryl Streep in bed together, The Seduction of Joe Tynan shows just how sexy shared interests can be. Alda plays Joe Tynan, a senator who’s been tapped to lead the campaign against a conservative Supreme Court nominee, raising his political career prospects. But he risks everything for an affair with Karen Traynor (Streep), a smart lobbyist, that begins when they’re out on the road together, inspecting wetlands. What’s sticks with you isn’t just Tynan’s stupidity—though there’s that too—but also how much fun he’s having with Traynor. We tend to think of affairs as furtive, desperate things. But despite how sordid they can seem when exposed, The Seduction of Joe Tynan is a reminder of why people, particularly those with lots of power but little in the way of amusement, fall into affairs in the first place.

2. Primary Colors (1998): Based on Joe Klein’s novel of the same name, Primary Colors follows the peccadillo-plagued campaign for president of a southern governor named Jack Stanton (John Travolta, in one of the best performances of his career), otherwise known as Bill Clinton. Rather than trying to understand the appetites of powerful men, the movie is more interested in how people enable those men and those appetites, whether they are aides lying to themselves about their candidate’s transgressions, or actively covering them up in service of some perceived greatness. When Libby Holden, the long-time friend of Jack Stanton played by Kathy Bates, mourns that “No one ever calls you on it. Because you’re so completely fucking special … Me too. Me the worst,” she’s articulating what it’s like to believe in someone so deeply, and to have that faith betrayed.

3. Heartburn (1986): Not strictly a political scandal movie, Heartburn is the movie adaptation of Nora Ephron’s novelization of her marriage to Carl Bernstein—a marriage that was broken up by his perpetual philandering. But if you’ve been watching l’affair Petraeus-Broadwell unfold and marveling at how small the world of the scandal seems—Broadwell’s emails were investigated after she harassed a friend of Petraeus, Tampa hostess Jill Kelley, who was herself exchanging flirty emails with Petraeus’s successor in Afghanistan—this is the movie for you. As Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep again) navigates life in Washington with her journalist husband Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson), the city starts to feel more and more claustrophobic with every encounter Rachel has at a Georgetown supermarket or at the beauty salon, where she bolts out mid-perm. I can only imagine that the social bubble of the military elite feels equally incestuous, and is equally capable of driving everyone a little crazy.

4. Dick (1999): Particularly if you’re of the view that the FBI, which has its own problems with an agent who sent shirtless photos of himself to Jill Kelley, dramatically overstepped its bounds in investigating Broadwell and Petraeus, watch Dick. It’s both one of the great, underrated Washington movies, and a brilliantly mean portrait of powerful men working themselves into a flop sweat. After two teenaged girls (Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst) accidentally witness the Watergate break-in, the Nixon administration goes to great lengths to placate them, even making them Checkers’ official dog walkers. But when the two turn out to be good for more than worshipping the president and hooking up the Secret Service with magic brownies, the administration turns on them. The lesson? The less time important men spend on teenage girls and middle-aged mistresses, the better for the nation.

 

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November 9, 2012 · 3:54 PM

CIA director resigns over extra-marital affair

MSNBC

Video

CIA Director David Petraeus resigned Friday afternoon, citing his “extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.”

Petraeus, a four-star general who led American forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has served his post in the CIA since he retired from the military and was sworn in September 2011. He was a widely respected figure in the military and the intelligence community.

“Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

Petraeus first alerted President Obama of his affair on Thursday, and offered his resignation to which the president later accepted.

“Going forward, my thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus, who has done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time,” Obama said in a statement

Petraeus’ resignation comes just three days after results of the presidential campaign first started rolling in. He is likely to be succeeded by Deputy CIA Director, Michael Morell.

Petraeus was slated to speak before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week over the handling of the consulate attacks in Benghazi, Libya. His resignation is not said to be linked to the controversy over the September attacks, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell reports.

“This is by any account a shocking announcement,” she said.

The general’s wife, Holly Petraeus, worked in the Consumer Advocacy Agency for the Obama administration and had been one of the deputies under Elizabeth Warren.

Read Petraeus’ resignation in full:

HEADQUARTERS
Central Intelligence Agency

9 November 2012

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA. After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation.

As I depart Langley, I want you to know that it has been the greatest of privileges to have served with you, the officers of our Nation’s Silent Service, a work force that is truly exceptional in every regard. Indeed, you did extraordinary work on a host of critical missions during my time as director, and I am deeply grateful to you for that.

Teddy Roosevelt once observed that life’s greatest gift is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. I will always treasure my opportunity to have done that with you and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end.

Thank you for your extraordinary service to our country, and best wishes for continued success in the important endeavors that lie ahead for our country and our Agency.

With admiration and appreciation,

David H. Petraeus

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March 18, 2012 · 3:37 AM

Sunday Morning Blog Round Up

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