FBI DUDE # 1: “Do you think there’s even a possibility of a crime here?”
FBI DUDE # 2: “Hell, I don’t know. You know the SOP. Let’s root around through every aspect of this chick’s personal life, and every aspect of the personal life of everyone she knows. We’re bound to find something. Bob really wants to make it with that chick.”
Glenn Greenwald points out the massive civil liberties invasions that took place in the name of what? Well, in the name of the right of the FBI to invade your civil liberties on the basis of a horny FBI agent trying to make it with a hot chick. Is it a crime for an FBI agent to act the way X did? I hope so.
The CIA, presumably, is a bit miffed to see its director publicly humiliated on the basis of an FBI investigation that never should have happened. Look, damn it, you’re supposed to harass Muslims, not important people! Muslims! M-U-S-L-I-M-S!
Michael Hastings, a bit full of himself at times but usually right on the money, explains why Gen. David “the Situation” Petraeus’ real crimes are murder and insubordination, not adultery and male menopause. I don’t know if Petraeus’record in Iraq was as bad as Max says, but they sure don’t love us there. And Hastings is absolutely right that Petraeus shamelessly played the Washington game and shamelessly undercut his commander-in-chief, which is pretty much the way four-stars treat Democratic presidents. When Obama first arrived in office, Petraeus adroitly leaked to the proper personages what “had to be done” in Afghanistan, making it impossible for Obama to even consider reducing U.S. commitment there, although Obama himself was always talking up Afghanistan as “the good war,” a singularly inapt analysis. Four years after, Petraeus is surely delighted to be out of Afghanistan, and happy to let his countrymen suffer, not to mention the Afghans themselves. Defeat in Afghanistan? Hey, it didn’t happen on my watch!†
Yes, Petraeus is gone, and poor Gen. John Allen may be next. So now the Marines hate the FBI as much as the CIA does. And there are still plenty of wild cards still in the deck, most notably the decision of Agent X to push the ball further along by calling Republican congressman Dave Reichert, from Washington State, who told him to call House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who had his chief of staff call the FBI to find out, well, why the FBI hadn’t ruined Petraeus’ career yet. Or something. And I guess we can also ask why Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who I guess found out from the FBI about the affair, told Petraeus he had to resign.
The odds that any one of these important people will have to explain themselves is slim, although Attorney General Eric Holder may be forced out, simply because the Republicans hate him, for all the wrong reasons. One can hope, though it’s a pretty slim hope, that the cause of civil liberties may be advanced by a single inch through this whole affair. In any event, thanks to a cast str8t outa The Jersey Shore, both the FBI and the military have shown themselves to be a bit flawed, which is not nothing.
*Let me the first to suggest that Jill Kelley hath implants. They don’t call me the Natural Enquirer for nothing!
†The difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan comes down to this: the bombs were smarter, but not the generals. Like his predecessor Westmoreland, Petraeus relied on ordnance rather than intellect, to as little effect. Both wars were wars we never should have fought. Both wars are wars we will lose, with no real effect, other than the manifold sufferings of those who live there.
