Somewhere in the halls of government in Peking, and Moscow,
and Havana, and Caracas, and Kabul (or Karachi, or wherever in hell Al Qaeda
hangs its turban these days) a bunch of people who wish the United States no good
must be slapping their thighs and texting each other “ROTF!!!” messages.
I could be wrong, but from where I sit, the entire United
States is getting its knickers in a twist over what properly ought to be
regarded as nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. (How’s that for two
clichés in one sentence?)
The facts so far – or at least so far
as I think I can figure them
out:
General David Patraeus, until a few news cycles ago the lead
dog at the CIA, had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. That’s not
formidably surprising. They had a lot in common. They both graduated from West
Point. They both like to stay in shape. She's interested in him and he's also interested in him. And he is, or was, a powerful
man while she’s a younger woman. It’s a match made in heaven, even if it was
made by some very mischievous angels who ought to have their wings whupped.
After a while, if I’ve followed the convoluted story correctly,
Patreus broke off the relationship with Paula. This made Paula feel so insecure
that she started acting paranoid and sent another woman, named Jill Kelley, a
whole bunch of non-violent but allegedly abusive e-mails saying, in effect,
“keep your hands off my guy.”
That would be something close to hubris, considering that
General Patraeus is legally married to a very nice woman named Holly Patraeus,
an innocent bystander in this brutal farce, but nevertheless the only woman
entitled to call David Patraeus “my guy” if she still wants to. (By the way, is
“brutal farce” an oxymoron? Umm, I’ll vote for no in this case.)
Freaking out to the FBI
Then Jill Kelley, who so far as I know never laid a hand on
any part of General Patraeus’ body, freaks out and goes to a pal of hers in the
FBI, who gets an FBI Cyber Squad to investigate the nasty e-mails she’s been
receiving. Which shows how much power a pretty woman with a friend in the FBI can
have. I couldn’t even get the FBI to investigate a case of wide spread cyber
fraud when I was all but able to hand over the perpetrator to them on a silver
platter, with the physical evidence. Even after I put the story out on the
Internet, I got no response.
Well hey, that’s the FBI for you. So anyway the FBI starts
to investigate Paula’s e-mails, but then an FBI agent sends Jill a picture of
himself shirtless, which demonstrates either that he never read about the Chris Lee case less than a year ago, or that guys at the FBI really don’t have enough
to do.
But this leads to a check of Jill’s e-mail, which reveals an
abnormal level of correspondence with a U.S. Marines General, John R. Allen. So
suddenly the Marines get sucked (no pun intended) into this flock of canards, too.
And now everybody’s investigating everything. Diane
Feinstein is irked that the Senate Intelligence Committee wasn’t told about –
well, whatever it is. Ditto the house. Ditto various Republican senators, who,
right in character, are leaping at an opportunity to bloviate about something
everybody can understand, if not really follow. Hey, it’s confusing, but
it sounds sexy.
The only real victim of this face, so far as I can see from
here in front of my cranky computer, is the General’s very nice wife, Holly
Patraeus. And probably Mrs. Allen, now, too, if there is a Mrs. Allen. (Or if
there still will be one six months from now.)
General Petraeus did the right thing and quickly resigned from the
CIA, rather than try to tough out and deny the undeniable, as assorted rascals from
Anthony Weiner to Lance Armstrong have done. It’s uncertain so far, at least to
me, whether General Allen did
anything at all, other than answer a whole bunch of e-mails, so many that it
makes me wonder whether he has enough to
do.
The old "woman scorned" story
Somehow all this reminds me of a story I covered out in Brooklyn years ago when I was a young newspaper reporter. (You’ll find a
zillion – well anyway, a bunch of – good yarns like this in my e-book, “HEIRESS STRANGLED IN MOLTEN CHOCOLATE AT NAZI SEX ORGY! A memoir.”)
Seems that a male model got engaged to a pretty girl in the
outer reaches of Brooklyn. The date was set. The engagement presents started
arriving. Then he dumped her – and took off with the gifts. She went to
the police, full of righteous rage, to report his theft of their engagement gifts.
But the cops told the girl that under the law engagement presents were
mutually owned, and that therefore there was legally no theft. She looked ready
to explode. Sulfurous smoke was all but jetting out of her ears. You could almost see the mushroom cloud in her eyes.
“Well okay then!” she exploded. “Would you be interested if
I told you he committed armed robbery?”
That interested the cops. So the jilted bride-to-be then
revealed that she and her ex-fiancee had held up a shoe repair store at
gunpoint. They didn't get much money from a cobbler, but it was still armed robbery.
That enabled her to get even, even though it cost her.
They both ended up in the slammer.
So enough reminiscing. We’re at the edge of a fiscal cliff. The economy
is about to fall off into the abyss. The future of America is at stake. Syria is coming apart at the seams And all
the press and Congress can say is, “What did the President know about this and
when did he know it? And why weren’t the House and Senate informed of
whatever-it-is sooner?”
Civilizations get the collapses they deserve.
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