The Commentariat -- Nov. 17, 2012
My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' latest pontifications.
The President's weekly address:
... The transcript is here.
... ** The Upside Down World of Alan Greenspan. Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider... here is Greenspan being completely misleading, talking about how the big challenges now are to find places to cut spending, rather than to reverse spending cuts that we've agreed to. He's framing the cliff 100 percent backwards, and so naturally the public and politicians are going to be totally confused about the issue at hand. At some point we need to decide if taxes should be higher. And we can talk about whether we want to allocate fewer resources to the aged. But right now there's one task: Preventing austerity." CW: the Oracle of the Very Serious People is the guy who led us into this quagmire in the first place. If he had an ounce of humility, which he does not, he would STFU, get into the bathtub & quietly reread his favorite Ayn Rand books. ...
** "The Moocher Majority." Paul Krugman has a terrific post on how Romney & the Republican party came to the worldview that improving Americans' lives was a dirty trick. Hint: "It began as a deliberate appeal to racism, with explicit condemnation of Those People as welfare moochers." This short post is the must-read of the day.
** Philip Bump in Grist: "If you were born in or after April 1985, if you are right now 27 years old or younger, you have never lived through a month that was colder than average. That's beyond astonishing." Via Jonathan Bernstein.
** "Death by Ideology." E. J. Graff of American Prospect: "... without safe abortions, real women really die." An excellent essay.
CW: I'm not much of a fan of former Bush speechwriter David Frum who has reinvented himself as a "reasonable conservative." But he gets stuff right sometimes. On his HBO show last night, Bill Maher read this bit from a recent Frum column (Frum was a guest). It is worth repeating:
In 1962, the government regulated the price and route of every airplane, every freight train, every truck and every merchant ship in the United States. The government regulated the price of natural gas. It regulated the interest on every checking account and the commission on every purchase or sale of stock. Owning a gold bar was a serious crime that could be prosecuted under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The top rate of income tax was 91%.
It was illegal to own a telephone. Phones had to be rented from the giant government-regulated monopoly that controlled all telecommunications in the United States. All young men were subject to the military draft and could escape only if they entered a government-approved graduate course of study. The great concern of students of American society ... was the country's stultifying, crushing conformity. Even if you look only at the experiences of white heterosexual men, the United States of 2012 is a freer country in almost every way than the United States of 1962.
Never Mind. Hayes Brown of Think Progress: "Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has admitted that the CIA and intelligence community approved U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice's talking points before she made her much-derided Sept. 16 appearance on several Sunday news shows to discuss the attacks in Benghazi. King, one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration's response to the attack, came to his conclusion following testimony from former CIA Director David Petraeus." ...
... Donna Cassata of the AP: "Republican senators' angry criticism of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice over her initial account of the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya smacks of sexism and racism, a dozen female members of the House said Friday. In unusually personal terms, the Democratic women lashed out at Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham who earlier this week called Rice unqualified and untrustworthy and promised to scuttle her nomination if President Barack Obama nominates her to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton." ...
... Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution in the Washington Post: "It seems a big reach to suggest that Susan Rice, of all people, should be barred from another job in the Obama administration because of what happened in Benghazi." ...
... On the other hand, Dana Milbank really does not like Susan Rice, who he says "can be a most undiplomatic diplomat." CW: Milbank provides a number of examples, only one of which I find at all compelling. My favorite is that Rice flipped off Richard Holbrooke back in the day. RIP, Dick; I'll bet you had it coming. Maybe Rice flipped off Milbank, too. If she did, he had it coming.
New York Times Editors: "Montanans overwhelmingly approved Initiative 166 on Election Day. The measure requires the state's congressional delegation to propose an amendment to the United States Constitution that would prohibit corporate contributions and expenditures in Montana elections.... As Gov. Brian Schweitzer [D] summed it up, Montanans are saying loudly enough for the Supreme Court to hear, 'Now it's up to Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to get the dirty, secret, corporate, foreign money out of our elections for good.'"
Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "Now that the presidential election is over, Americans look a bit more positively toward both the winner (Barack Obama) and the loser (Mitt Romney) than they did in the final days leading up to the election. Americans' views of the Democratic Party are up significantly, while their views of the Republican Party are unchanged." ...
Gail Collins: "It appears that Mitt Romney was a terrible presidential candidate." ...
... Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: Mitt Romney -- "who attracted $1 billion in funding and 59 million votes in his bid to unseat President Obama -- has rapidly become persona non grata to a shellshocked Republican Party, which appears eager to map out its future without its 2012 nominee."
Zeynep Tufekci in a New York Times op-ed: "The confluence of marketing and politics," quantified in the Obama campaign's $100 million data operation, is worrisome.
Ken Belson of the New York Times: "The N.F.L. is being sued by several thousand retired players who accuse the league of concealing a link between head hits and brain injuries. The league denies the accusation and has said it did not mislead its players."
Union Saves Nation from Twinkies. NBC Dallas-Fort Worth: "Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, is going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work, the company said." ...
... What's happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what's wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor. Crony capitalism and consistently poor management drove Hostess into the ground, but its workers are paying the price.... This is wrong. It has to stop. It's wrecking America. -- Richard Trumka, President, AFL-CIO ...
... David Dayen has some background on Hostess's really bad business decisions. ...
... Kris Benson of Wonkette: "Today is a sad day for Americans because we are losing a quintessentially American dessert, maybe forever. This is mostly the fault of commie liberal 'labor' unions who have the NERVE to demand a living wage for their work, which makes the whole thing double plus sad. Of course, it isn't actually the fault of labor unions but corporate spokespeople the media has SAID it's the fault of labor unions so CASE CLOSED.... Labor unions mean no dessert, ever, for anyone, in Obama's America.... The company tripled CEO pay in 2011 even though the company been in bankruptcy twice since 2004." ...
... Byron Tau of Politico: "A new White House petition wants President Obama to nationalize the 'Twinkie industry,' saving the popular junk food from possible extinction." CW: sorry, not going to happen. As Kris Benson writes, there's every likelihood that the demise of Twinkies "is actually a conspiracy between Michelle Obama and Muslim communists."
Dorothy Wickenden of the New Yorker speaks with Jane Mayer, Steve Coll & Patrick Keefe about the Petraeus Affair. A sane discussion:
Local News
Kevin Robillard of Politico: "Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster has apologized for alleging widespread voter fraud by mysterious groups of black people in rural parts of the state.... In his statement Thursday, he said he was dropping the plan to investigate" the alleged black people he said nobody knows. He also told TPM he knows "a black guy." (I'm not making that up. The guy is "Onion"-proof.) ...
... Bill Nemetz of the Kennebec Journal: Craig Hickman, 45, will represent his hometown of Winthrop, [Maine] and neighboring Readfield in the Maine House of Representatives. He's gay. He's black. People know him. Thanks to reader Gail L. for the link.
Congressional Races
George Bennett & Christine Stapleton of the Palm Beach Post: "A divided St. Lucie County canvassing board decided Friday night to recount all 37,379 ballots from early voting in the tight congressional race between Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West and Democrat Patrick Murphy. The 2-1 decision is at least a temporary victory for West, who trails Murphy by less than 2,000 votes or about 0.6 percent in unofficial returns from congressional District 18, which includes St. Lucie, Martin and northern Palm Beach counties.... The canvassing board's decision came hours after Treasure Coast Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn declined to intervene in the case and denied a request from the West campaign that he order a recount of all the early votes."
News Ledes
New York Times: "New York City is moving to demolish hundreds of homes in the neighborhoods hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy, after a grim assessment of the storm-ravaged coast revealed that many structures were so damaged they pose a danger to public safety and other buildings nearby."
New York Times: "Many of at least a dozen Afghan Taliban prisoners being released by Pakistan are significant figures, according to officials on all sides, and Afghan peace representatives were exultant on Saturday as they announced that more releases might follow."
Reuters: "Thousands of people protested in Egyptian cities on Friday against Israeli air strikes on Gaza and Egypt's president pledged to support the Palestinian enclave's population in the face of 'blatant aggression'."
New York Times: "Israel retaliated for Palestinian rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with five airstrikes before dawn Saturday on the Gaza City offices of Ismail Haniya, the prime minister of Hamas -- the militant Islamist group that governs Gaza." (CW Note: the Times has a new system that prevents me from linking long stories as a single page. Sorry for their inconvenience.) Washington Post story here. ...
... AP Update: "Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with about 300 airstrikes Saturday and shot down a Palestinian rocket fired at Tel Aviv, the military said, widening a blistering assault to include the Hamas prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels. The intensified airstrikes came as Egyptian-led attempts to broker a cease-fire and end Israel's four-day-old Gaza offensive gained momentum." ...
... AP Update 2: "The White House on Saturday defended Israel's right to defend itself against attack and decide how to respond to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, blaming the ruling Islamic militant Hamas group for starting the conflict."
... Al Jazeera: "Israeli air strikes have killed at least eight Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, medics said, with Palestinian security sources confirming that at least three of them were Hamas fighters. The Israeli army, meanwhile, said on Saturday that four soldiers were injured by a rocket fired from Gaza. Palestinian medics said 39 Palestinians have been killed and 345 wounded since Israel launched the aerial campaign on the Palestinian enclave on Wednesday. In the same period, three Israelis have been killed and 13 injured, including 10 soldiers."
Al Jazeera: "British Foreign Secretary William Hague has indicated his country would decide within days whether to officially recognise the new Syrian opposition after 'encouraging' talks with its leaders in London. Hague on Friday said he had pressed Ahmed Mouaz al-Khatib and his two deputies, who are on their first visit to a Western capital since a united Syrian opposition was formed last weekend, on the need to be inclusive and to respect human rights."
Al Jazeera: "The United States has said it will allow imports from Myanmar for the first time in a decade days before President Barack Obama arrives for a historic visit, the first by a US president to the former pariah state. The lifting of the ban on most imports, excluding jade, rubies and jewelry, was announced as the latest measure to reward political and economic reforms of President Thein Sein." ...
... Al Jazeera: "Myanmar has pardoned hundreds of prisoners under an amnesty that appears to be a goodwill gesture just days before a visit by US President Barack Obama. The government ordered the release of 452 prison inmates on Thursday in a move criticised by pro-democracy activists for allegedly failing to grant freedom to many political detainees."
Guardian: "Iran has expanded its enrichment capacity and is enriching uranium at a pace that would bring it to what Israel has declared an unacceptable red line in just over seven months, according to a report by the UN nuclear watchdog."
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Reader Comments (15)
@Zee. This is a continuation of a conversation Zee & I had at the end of yesterday's thread. Zee, as you yourself point out, people -- with security clearances -- mishandle classified documents all the time, often inadvertently, I surmise. In addition, as you know, there is classified & CLASSIFIED. The documents Wen Ho Lee was accused of carelessly carting around were nuclear secrets that a foreign government with nuclear capabilities or aspirations would have found useful. My guess is that whatever Broadwell was able to get her hands on was far less sensitive. As you know, a lot of stuff gets routinely classified when in fact it wouldn't be of much use or interest to any foreign entities. As much as Broadwell liked to pass herself off as a player, she probably didn't have access to the hot stuff.
If you're looking for somebody who should have spent 9 months in solitary for "mishandling" classified docs, my nominee would be Sandy Berger, Clinton's NSA director, who -- subsequent to his service at NSA -- waltzed out of the National Archives with classified documents stuffed in his underwear. Hardly inadvertent. He did pay a price, but never sat in jail. Of course Berger was a big shot and THERE ARE DIFFERENT RULES FOR BIG SHOTS.
Marie
WHAT! no more Twinkies? What the ding dong are we gonna do? At least there will be no more mild mannered Dan Whites who blamed his shooting of Harvey Milk and Mayor Berlusconi on an overdose of Twinkies––sugar shock drove him to madness. It's a shame labor unions will be blamed in this case––and so many will lose their jobs.
Heard a bit of an introductory speech in the Mayflower Grand Ballroom on "Constitutional Law and the Supreme Court by Marie's favorite bald head of state, Rick Scott. Here's what I learned: He just loves his job; wishes everyone could have the experience of being governor because it's so darned much fun–-you get to travel all over the state and talk and help people. When he was in high school his teachers would say, "Ricky, you should be a social worker"––that's what this job is like, he says, I'm like a social worker for the people of this great state. Something about reviving the "American Dream" ––then the other great thing about his job is that of choosing Judges (I bet)––went on about how the AFC exchanges are not going to reduce costs and will increase taxes in Florida. He also wants to continue on the path of honest, fair elections––you know the kind that Floridians experienced a few weeks ago. He concluded with a big hurrah for State's Rights––"We have to stand up for them or the government will run us over." Seems Mr. Social Worker doesn't equate his governing as part of the government, but just some independent social service that makes people feel good or something unless they are those dusky interlopers who want "stuff."
P.S. There's a cartoon showing a couple sitting on a couch in front of a TV––woman says, "What's on TV?" Man answers, "Just reruns." Bubbles from the TV set are "Rockets fired from Gaza" and "Israel Retaliates." I would be interested in your ––anyone?–– take on this situation. I should say up front that for decades my sympathies as far as the settlements are concerned are with the Palestinians. Years ago I ran into an old acquaintance and during our conversation this topic came up. I expressed my concern for the Palestinians and I practically got my head cut off. I have been tiptoeing ever since. The close friends of mine that are Jewish have the same view as I, but the fury of that other encounter has left me tentative and careful.
Re: The grim reaper; PD, I once read that an Israeli policy maker characterized the Palestinian situation as a grass lawn. There is no solution but to cut the grass as it grows. I support an independent Palestinian state. I do not support the Democratic Party's plank of Jerusalem being named as the capitol of Israel. I believe Jerusalem should be an international city of worship. I believe some of the problems in Israel are more about ethnic make-up than religion. I believe there are many Palestinians that can't voice their own opinions because of fear of retaliation from the radical groups that are now firing rockets into neighborhoods full of civilians. I think Jimmy Carter was not completely wrong in his opinions.
Re: Frum. Interesting, but only part of the story. Not all Frum's fault perhaps because telling the whole truth gets complicated, so one can count on explainers of any stripe to avoid presenting the whole picture. They wouldn't want to get bogged down in detail and make things sound less than simple.
More free today? In some senses yes and Frum presents a compelling list. But what about privacy issues? The gummit has access to virtually everything we see and do, all in the name of security. But isn't there a zero-sum element to security arrangements? The more secure I am, am I not that much less free? For too many already, freedom is staying indoors, door locked. Last night I walked a stranger to her car on the University of Washington campus. It was late, dark and raining and she was afraid to walk that block alone. I understood her fears. Did that make her more free than she would have felt in 1962? I'd guess not.
And how about something as simple as driving while intoxicated? Not something I'd recommend, but I do remember the days when there were so few drivers on the local roads that it was relatively easy to avoid that fellow just ahead who was weaving his way home. In part, freedom is a numbers question and in that sense living with 300 million others makes you far less free than would half that number in the same space. The interesting question is how a society choses to handle the challenges of the inevitable propinquity. Contrary to what Mr. Frum says, we do have a hell of a lot more rules today that we did fifty years ago...
Then there's Wall Street. How could Mr. Frum forget what Wall Street's freedom led to barely four years ago. If freedom to him is the absence of corporate and financial regulation, then he's right. We did get much more free there for a while but the benefit of that freedom accrued mostly to the small percentage of the social order who grew far more wealthy at the expense of the growing majority who did not. In short, increased freedom for a few led to severely diminished economic freedom for more than a hundred million others. If I were David Frum, I would not have the nerve to brag about that.
But then I'm not Mr. Frum. His remarks about "freedom" were provocative insofar as they made me think about about what he said--essentially a restatement of the old conservative/individual-focussed argument about freedom--but until Frum and his buddies begin to account for the consequences of their definition of freedom and all the factors that inhibit or promote our freedom's expansion, I can't take him any more seriously now than I could before he re-birthed himself as a "reasonable" Republican alternative.
Millbank strikes me as someone who is holding a personal grudge against Susan Rice. She chose Obama over Clinton and was forthright about her policy disagreements with the candidate - in a primary? Mercy that's deeply offensive to well...Millbank. I can't help but wonder if the whole "she was mean to the Russians" story would have been spun as a tough, diplomat holding ground on US positions were she a he. Everything I have ever read about Holbrooke portrays him as often abrasive and rude while being brilliant - flipping him off, seems pretty innocuous. The point is Millbank's objections to Rice look personal and smack of all the tired sexist arguments which would either hold no water if she were a male or even more likely be celebrated as "toughness".
This is me flipping off Millbank.
Grist's Philip Bump article prompts me to share with everyone a thought provoking book by Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior.
The book revolves around the natural history of the monarch butterfly, and concerns for its survival in the near future. Kingsolver weaves the complex factors of climate change, politics, religion, socio-economic and science into a "story" that I believe explains the difficulty of getting people on board with environmental issues.
Meanwhile, I was reading this book on a resort in Cancun (not my choice!) where we saw very few butterflies and insects. Why? Every evening we saw some poor guy out spraying insecticide (DDT?). Tourists. Seemingly oblivious to the death surrounding us. Sigh.
Here's a beautifully written, intelligent column by a Muslim-American that every Republican should read (Democrats too----especially Harry Reid, who shamefully opposed the Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/essay-how-the-republican-party-alienated-the-once-reliable-muslim-voting-bloc/2012/11/15/23e2af70-2da5-11e2-9ac2-1c61452669c3_story_4.html
Not to worry, Twinkie lovers, if the Twinkie Brand is strong enough, it will be bought by a company that can reposition it in the market (possibly as a new 'type' of health food :-) that could double as plastic wrap). The purchase will probably not occur during the bankruptcy time because the monies received would have to go to the creditors. So, given enough time, the 'owners' of The Brand (not the company) will profit. And, those pesky employees and their unions will not get a dime.
This paragraph from the FDL article posted today highlights the attitude of the 1% robber barons: "This is an object lesson in how management looks at labor relations these days. Workers are expected to take their lumps, and if they protest, management will just blow up the company. And the owners will still make a profit. This is Romneyism and Bainism writ large."
@PDPepe and JJG re: the Palestinians ~ I share your views.
The Israeli/Palestine confrontation is extremely complex but there are at least two major developments to consider for the time being.
The most obvious is that right across the border in Egypt, there is no longer the assurance of passive Mubarak whose policy toward Israel consisted in whatever the US told him to do. The repeated Israeli oppression of the Palestinians has always provoked the Egyptian people but at the state level Israel knew no backlash would come because of the billions the US sends Egypt each year for their regional "cooperation" in these messes.
After the Arab Spring, however, the regional makeup has been turned upside down and the current Egyptian government is headed by a moderate Muslim leadership who will clearly not stand idly by while Israel disproportionally rains bombs into heavily populated areas. Egypt has always considered itself a regional power and this could be the chance for them to reclaim a lot of their influence in the Arab world as they do their best to moderate this destabilizing situation. Egypt's role in this pseudo-war will be a very important key to the distribution of power in the region's near future.
Another important development is the fact that this is the first time rockets shot from Gaza have made it far enough to hit Tel Aviv and almost Jerusalem. In previous encounters the Palestinians didn't have the rocket technology to send them into these very heavily populated cities. This is a big development because it potentially doubles the number of Israelis susceptible to rocket attacks, which puts much more pressure on the Israeli leadership because they're responsible for starting up this most recent flare up with the illegal assassination of the leader of Hamas. Hamas has vowed a deadly reprisal and the mounting body count of Palestinian civilians is throwing fuel on the fire as usual.
Add to this the mounting fervor just to the East in Syria. Just a few days ago Israeli soldiers were reported to have responded militarily to shells landing in Israeli occupied territory in the Golan Heights. And due North in Lebanon, the deep ethnic divide is simmering over after the assassination of the Sunni intelligence chief. And to top things off, the country of Jordan to the East, a traditionally neutral country in the Israel/Palestine confrontation, is currently experiencing significant social unrest thanks to the government removing fuel subsidies and thus enraging the population over the high cost of living. So the entire region is the proverbial "powder keg" waiting to explode.
I understand criticizing Israel, particularly in the US, is a touchy undertaking. But there comes a time when you have call a spade a spade. As I mentioned during the Presidential foreign policy debate where the issue didn't even come up, Palestine matters! It's a huge issue for the region and finding some type of messy solution could change the whole geopolitical framework. It would without a doubt make us safer as a Nation. If Israel was even remotely serious about securing peace for its country, they'd be proactively seeking some type of peace agreement. Instead they opt for internationally condemned settlement expansion and a military invasion of occupied Palestine every few years. This has been an issue since 1948, and still no progress.
Earlier this year, a German poet Guner Grass wrote a very gutsy work titled "What Must Be Said" I'll leave you with a few lines:
"I feel the everybody silence on this state of affairs,
which my silence is slave to,
as an oppressive lie and an inhibition that presents punishment
we don’t pay attention to;
the verdict “anti-Semitism” is common."
Thanks to JJG, Mushiba, and safari for their comments. It's good to know we can voice our view here without the backlash of wet noodles and misunderstandings. Israel has been a greedy caterpillar eating its way into territory best left alone. It saddens me to understand how a state that was conceived to protect and house peoples that had been persecuted for centuries has persecuted for decades another group that now lives under their thumb.
Hamas is another whole bag of beans–––and not related to my query.
I'll take one of whatever Frum is inhaling/smoking/drinking. One of whatever inspired him to suggest, "The United States is a tolerant and free country, which means that there are no 'tipping points' beyond which it becomes impossible to correct mistakes." Yeah, unless corporations and Wall St. own our lawmakers and Supreme Court or, say, the electorate comes to regard 4- to 8-hour voting lines as something remotely acceptable. Luckily, neither of these things have happened, but....
I'm so tired of the bizarre "It can't happen here" fantasy, seeing as how it has happened here and keeps on happening here. I wish to God all the fabled safeguards and balances of our democracy worked worth a damn, but they would have to exist in the first place. That's the problem.
I was only five in 1962, but I'll take his word re stifling conformity. Not at all like today, when people are free to look, dress, and act just as the mood hits them at a given moment, when there's no stigma attached to being (read: looking) average and ordinary. No pressure to own a certain car, sport a certain weight, have read any particular book, be a devoted fan of a particular TV show or network, or have watched the latest movies, etc. Not like 1962.
And for whose benefit does he keep noting that things are considerably less regulated these days? Who's supposed to feel reassured by that, save for pissed-off conservatives? I'm tired of the Republican fantasy of reform without regulation--it's insultingly at odds with reality.
I'm with ya, Raul. Since when have any of those Frum "freedoms" been worth a fuck?
@James Singer, ?? What freedoms have I judged to not be worth a fuck? I expressed my belief that reform can't happen without regulation and that our era is just as conformistic, if not more so, than 1962. I don't see where Frum gave a list of freedoms--rather, he talks about the horrors of a draft (something that would have shortened Bush's illegal war by a number of years, imo), govt-controlled phones, and the like. And he mentions stultifying (not "stifling;" sorry) conformity, which naturally made me think of our media-addled age, in which people are primarily judged by how toned they look at age 53.
Seriously, I have no idea what freedoms I'm supposed to have dissed in my comment. I happen to be a fan of freedom, at least as far as I know....
@Marie--
As [almost] always, you are right. There is "classified," and then there is "CLASSIFIED." Paula Broadwell was almost certainly a "little 'c' " personality.
And there is also the matter of "intent," and then there is "INTENT."
Sandy Berger clearly had INTENT, and he was caught.
Yet he did no "jail time," or hardly suffered at all.
As you say, there are rules for the BIG GUYS, and then there are rules for the rest of us, e.g., the Wen Ho Lees.
I'm just glad that I played by the rules--having once been in a "position of trust"-- and never tested whether I was a BIG GUY or a little guy; 'cause in the end, there was no question but that I was just a "little guy" and would have been skinned alive, salted down, and staked out over an anthill in the high desert sun by the powers that be had I dared to betray my "position of trust."
Unlike Sandy Berger, and, yes, David Petraeus and his "consort. "
Whatever Paula Broadwell's and David Petraeus' (a Big Guy's) intents and knowledge, they will similarly "skate," whatever "little c" or "BIG C" information they made public.
Hey, he's a "hero" and she's "young and good looking." I predict that they are divorced from their respective, suffering spouses within the year, and are married and retired to Maui shortly thereafter.
Life's not fair, dammit.