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piranhai don't get particularly het up about politicians having affairs, except that it tends to tickle my hypocrisy bone when they are "family values" people. generally other politicians act like it's a much bigger deal than i feel it is. so per se i don't really care whether david petraeus shtupped other people than his wife; that's between him and her. but now i hear such sentiments coming from politicians.
and what a strange concept some people of honour they seem to have: david petraeus is considered to be ever so honourable for resigning his post as CIA director due to his extramarital affair. i am not impressed. honourable would have been to not have the affair in the first place. believe it or not, most people can resist their hormones, and i expect somebody who is the director of the CIA to manage that, because the stakes are so much higher than for a person who is not in a position to be blackmailed. but since shit happens -- especially when it comes to sex -- if he didn't resist, honourable would have been to come clean with his wife and his president right after he started the affair, and to consult as to whether this was a big enough deal to resign right then and there. it might not have been, because the danger here isn't so much the public's lowered opinion of its hero, but his vulnerability to being exposed. if he prevented that by telling the people who most needed to know, there was no danger of blackmail.
to only resign once caught, and once it was clear the shit was gonna hit the public fan, doesn't strike me as particularly honourable. i guess waiting until after the election is the only honourable thing i see here. if he did even that. i can't be bothered to track the timeline; too many conspiracy theorists already swarming around that.
as an aside, i am kinda amused by the fact that we now need a relationship diagram for the cast of characters in this sordid little morality play.
and what a strange concept some people of honour they seem to have: david petraeus is considered to be ever so honourable for resigning his post as CIA director due to his extramarital affair. i am not impressed. honourable would have been to not have the affair in the first place. believe it or not, most people can resist their hormones, and i expect somebody who is the director of the CIA to manage that, because the stakes are so much higher than for a person who is not in a position to be blackmailed. but since shit happens -- especially when it comes to sex -- if he didn't resist, honourable would have been to come clean with his wife and his president right after he started the affair, and to consult as to whether this was a big enough deal to resign right then and there. it might not have been, because the danger here isn't so much the public's lowered opinion of its hero, but his vulnerability to being exposed. if he prevented that by telling the people who most needed to know, there was no danger of blackmail.
to only resign once caught, and once it was clear the shit was gonna hit the public fan, doesn't strike me as particularly honourable. i guess waiting until after the election is the only honourable thing i see here. if he did even that. i can't be bothered to track the timeline; too many conspiracy theorists already swarming around that.
as an aside, i am kinda amused by the fact that we now need a relationship diagram for the cast of characters in this sordid little morality play.
no subject
on 2012-11-14 19:34 (UTC)no subject
on 2012-11-15 00:40 (UTC)