The Petraeus Debacle – Tea Party Nation

English: Congressman John Hall with General David Petraeus in Iraq, October 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Petraeus Debacle – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

In March 2012, as part of my monthly report on new books, Bookviews.com, I recommended “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus”, noting that Paula Broadwell “had considerable access to the man who now is director of the CIA and who had an illustrious military career.” Neither I, nor anyone else realized how much “access” she had. It turns out, as well, that much of the book was ghost-written by Vernon Loeb, who received credit on the cover. Even he was caught unaware.

As the story continues to unfold in the wake of Petraeus’ resignation as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, just a day after the reelection of President Obama, the stench of moral and political corruption continues to rise from everything that led to his resignation.

First there was the general’s affair with the married biographer, Ms. Broadwell. It is not uncommon for men to betray their marriage vows, but we expect men granted power and prestigious positions to maintain a higher degree of morality. As often as not ambitious men do not and one need only consult the Bible for the story of David as evidence of that. Even those around Petraeus may have had their suspicions, but they understandably said nothing. He was, after all, a four-star general and a hero of the Iraq war, the creator of a counter-insurgency program that rescued the U.S. from defeat after the “surge” approved by former President Bush.

What is, to my mind, most disturbing of the facts we have since learned, was that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had stumbled on the affair months prior to the election and the resignation. The key question becomes whether Petraeus’ testimony to a Congressional intelligence committee was influenced by the fact that his indiscretion was known to persons high in the Obama administration?

Was Petraeus under pressure to validate the false cover story that the Benghazi attack was the result of a “flash mob” and triggered by a video no one had seen? That was, in essence, what the general told the committee. It was the same story put forth by the administration’s UN ambassador, Susan Rice, as well as the President.

Scheduled to testify under oath, Petraeus rendered his resignation and one can only think that he did so in order not to perjure himself. The question remains whether he will be subpoenaed to testify.

The Nov 13th Washington Post reported that “some of his closest advisers who served with him during his last command in Iraq said Monday that Petraeus planned to stay in the job even after he acknowledged the affair to the FBI, hoping the episode would never become public. He resigned last week after being told to do so by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. on the day President Obama was reelected.”

Another key question is why the FBI was authorized to pursue the investigation that arose out of a complaint of email harassment by Broadwell of someone unrelated to the Benghazi event, but known to Petraeus. Why would the FBI investigate such a seemingly minor offence? And, knowing well in advance that Petraeus had engaged in an affair with Ms. Broadwell following his CIA appointment, how high up the chain of command did that knowledge go? Did, for example, the Attorney General give his blessing to the investigation? Did he inform White House intelligence officials? Did they, in turn, inform the President?

None of this is trivial. I can well remember the long months it took before the Watergate scandal of the 1970s eventually forced the resignation of Richard Nixon in the face of an impending impeachment.

President Clinton survived an impeachment effort in the wake of his sexual dalliance with a White House intern. He has long since been forgiven for it by many, if not most, Americans, despite the fact that he deliberately and knowingly lied to them at the time.

What did President Obama know? In hindsight, why did he offer the CIA position to Petraeus whose entire background was in military affairs, a consumer of intelligence, but not a producer of it? No doubt his leadership record qualified him to run a huge bureaucracy, but this one is as much a keeper of secrets as one that uncovers them. The agency has received a serious blow to its integrity.

On CanadaFreePress.com, Doug Hagmann recently wrote, “The alleged trysts of powerbrokers are a component to the story of Benghazi, but they are not the story. They provide convenient cover for emerging revelations. Like arrows in a quiver of those in positions of power, they exist as leverage to be used to neutralize existing or potential threats at the precise moment they are needed, without the untidiness and inconvenient inquiries that tend to accompany dead bodies. They are also powerful weapons that control the perception of a voyeuristic public, which is dutifully fed the salacious details by a complicit media.”

So, as the public’s attention is diverted to the Petraeus scandal, one is left to wonder if the full story of Benghazi and what now appears to be a major Obama administration failure to respond to the growing threat to our ambassador and his staff in Libya will fully emerge; misjudgments that cost him and three others their lives and was followed by weeks of outright deception by the President and those who answer to him.

In the wake of an election where it is increasingly clear that massive voter fraud contributed to the reelection of President Obama and possibly congressional candidates, one wonders whether there is sufficient voter outrage to have the fraud investigated. It has been reported that 59 districts in Philadelphia did not record one vote for Mitt Romney!

The stench of political corruption hung over the first term of the President in scandals such as the government gun-running scheme to Mexican cartels, “Fast and Furious” that cost a border patrol office his life. There was the long succession of the failures of green energy companies that cost taxpayers billions. There was the slush fund called a “stimulus” that achieved few jobs and no recovery from the recession Obama “inherited.”

Those who voted for a change are now thoroughly dispirited and depressed. Those who voted for Obama expect an extension of unemployment benefits, the food stamp program, and other government handouts. There is, however, a limit on how long such programs can be sustained. As the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once said, “Sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.” As the nation continues to hemorrhage lost jobs, that won’t take long.

Is it too much to hope that General Petraeus will testify and tell the truth about what the CIA knew about the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2011, the anniversary of 9/11?

If he does not, a distinguished career of service to America will be ruined by the worst mistake of his life.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Related articles

• Obama Machine Using Petraeus & Mistress (Sex Scandal) To Take Eyes Off Benghazi Massacre (themadjewess.com)
• Was Petraeus Sacrificed for Obama? (frontpagemag.com)
• Petraeus ‘made colossal mistake’ (sfluxe.com)
• Judge Napolitano: FBI Ran Amok With Petraeus’ Life and Liberties (foxnewsinsider.com)
• Obama stumbles over the finish line into an exploding Benghazi uproar (worldtribune.com)
• David Petraeus scandal widens to include Barack Obama’s cabinet (telegraph.co.uk)
• Lover’s jealous emails led to CIA chief’s downfall (capitalfm.co.ke)

Portrait of a Failed “Messiah” – Tea Party Nation

By Alan Caruba

“His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.”

If you think this is a psychological profile of Barack Obama, you would be wrong. It is a quote from a profile of Adolph Hitler, prepared for the Office of Strategic Services—the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency—by Walter C. Langer and three others during World War II.

The fact that it rather closely resembles aspects of Obama’s personality we have come to know would be cause for alarm if we were living in the 1930s at the time of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, but this is a very different time and the U.S. Constitution is still a powerful instrument.

Unlike the 1930s, the Internet has provided everyone with the ability to access information that, as often as not, conflicts with that the mainstream media would have us believe.

Still there are similarities. As to Hitler’s success, Langer wrote that the “Realization of a fundamental loneliness and feeling of isolation in people living under modern conditions and a craving to ‘belong’ to an active group which carries a certain status, provides cohesiveness, and gives the individual a feeling of personal worth and belongingness” is as true today as it was in former times.

This may explain the sudden appearance of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but OWS quickly wore out its welcome due to its complete lack of organization or mission.

Perhaps its only mission was to implant the thought that the “1%”—the rich—were unfairly wealthy at a time of widespread economic difficulties experienced by the unemployed, those who had lost their homes, and the middle class.

The problem OWS encountered is the general American view that this is a land of opportunity in which anyone can become rich along with the regard people have for those they deem to have become successful because they were innovators and risk-takers or, to put it another way, because they worked for it!

A large body of the American public today has rejected Barack Obama as they have come to know him. While frequently spoken of as having a charming personality and other positive traits, these attributes have been undermined by Obama.

His constant use, indeed, dependence on Tele-Prompters quickly became a running joke. On an organization level, his import of the so-called “czars” to backstop and even replace the traditional role and powers of Cabinet Secretaries created an immediate disquiet as the public learned more about them. They and Cabinet picks tended to share a well-recorded contempt for human beings.

In retrospect, the 2008 election was a masterpiece of the theatrical manipulation of the public’s perception of Obama. He was frequently presented in the context of huge crowds and in ways that portrayed him as “the Messiah” for those seeking an all-wise, all-knowing masterful personality.

Obama’s megalomania was perhaps best revealed when, on June 3, 2008, he said, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Was he taking responsibility or promising to alter the forces of Nature?

It is thus no accident that William Shirer, an American reporter who covered Hitler’s rise, described his public appearances, wrote “A searchlight plays upon his lone figure as he slowly walks through the hall, never looking to right or left, his right hard raised in salute, his left hand as the buckle of his belt. He never smiles—it is a religious rite, this procession of the modern Messiah incarnate. Behind him are his adjutants and secret service men. But his figure alone is flooded with light.”

“We are the generation we have been waiting for,” said Obama. This had a singular appeal to the young and to his generation that found themselves mired in debt. Soon Obama would increase that debt to such an extent that the children and grandchildren of his generation would be paying it off through their lifetimes. They, however, did not know that in 2008.

There were many unknowns during the years of Hitler’s rise to power, but there were many clues, indicators, and demonstrations of where he was taking Germany. Democratically elected, the Nazi Party was quick to impose control over all aspects of life in Germany and especially its media, its newspapers, films and other aspects of its culture. Parenthetically, many Americans are well aware that the mainstream media played a significant role in Obama’s election and routinely engages in furthering liberal fantasies such as global warming and renewable energy which turned out to be an orgy of crony capitalism.

Obama’s over-reach, a reflection of his distaste for the U.S. Constitution and his belief in his own superiority, has recently been seen in his attack on the Supreme Court. It is conjectured that he has been informed through back channels that Obamacare will be declared unconstitutional. If so, the centerpiece of his plan to engineer a government takeover the nation’s healthcare system will be in ruins.

His policy failures are well known to the public and, in particular, to the voters.

What we have come to learn is that he is a liar. He lies even when he does not have to and he lies all the time.

Unlike Hitler in the 1930s when the Nazi party was able to overturn all the normal conventions of the Weimar Republic, Barack Obama has run into the wall of the U.S. Constitution.

Obamacare was already opposed by most Americans and voters were offended when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “We have to pass the bill in order to find out what’s in it.” That’s not how a democracy works.

In 2010 the voters returned power in the House of Representatives to the Republicans. In 2012, Obama will be turned out of office and there is even the likelihood that a Republican President will have both houses of Congress controlled by his party.

Then the business of restoring the economy, rebuilding the military, and reducing the debt left in Obama’s wake will begin.

© Alan Caruba, 2012