There’s no doubt that the sex scandal that prompted CIA director David Petraeus’s sudden resignation late last week is a big story. New details–verified or not–seem to arrive almost by the hour.
But the reason it seems to have shaken so many media figures is because Petraeus was uniquely beloved by many in the corporate media, who considered him both an accessible source and a war hero.
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams called him (11/9/12) a “a man of such sterling reputation,” and confided on the air to one guest that “it is impossible to be a member of the military establishment, it’s impossible to be a journalist who has covered these wars going back 10 years and not know Dave Petraeus, as you and I both do–soldier, scholar, Princeton PhD.”
The New York Times (11/11/12) referred to the “dazzling career” of a “soldier-scholar blazing with ambition and intellect,” a “slender fitness fanatic” who was “known as a brainy ascetic.”
On CBS‘s Face the Nation (11/11/12), David Gergen proclaimed: “I think it’s a tragedy for the country. David Petraeus, a warrior scholar, I think he has been one of the finest leaders of his generation. He is an iconic figure for any number of young troops.”
The reporter who broke the story also sounded pained by the whole affair. Appearing on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow (11/9/12), Andrea Mitchell began by saying:
I have to tell you. I don’t take any pleasure in this…in the sense that this is really a personal tragedy. And there are families involved. People involved on all sides. And the men and women of the CIA, an agency that has many things to be proud about, many things to be proud about that, and that is under fire right now for other reasons.
CNN host Wolf Blitzer (11/9/12) sounded grave as well, calling the resignation
a very, very sad moment given his distinguished military career, his career more recently in the intelligence community, one of the most brilliant generals by all accounts we have had over the years, a Ph.D., graduate of Princeton University. Somebody who is not only a general, but a scholar who knows the stuff and by all accounts doing an excellent job over at the CIA. So it is a very sad moment not only for him and his family, but for everyone who knows him and indeed for the country right now.
In case that wasn’t clear, Blitzer reiterated: “I want to just underscore how sad this is for the U.S. military, the Army, the CIA, indeed the country, that someone of this stature must end a career under these circumstances.”
The thing about corporate media’s love affair with Petraeus that there were never any attempts to hide it. As ABC military reporter Martha Raddatz once put it (6/23/10): “A warrior and a scholar, Petraeus is sometimes jokingly referred to as a water walker, since almost everything he touches seems to turn to gold.” Or as David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote: (12/29/10):
I’ve seen Petraeus give many briefings over the years, and it’s a bit like watching a magician at work. Even though you’ve seen the trick before, and you know the patter, you still get mesmerized.
Petraeus understood how to use the media, and reporters understood that regular contact with a military commander was unusual. As CNN‘s Erin Burnett (11/12/12) summed up: “He made us all feel special. How quickly he would respond to e-mails. Yes.”
Now, there are some who regret how they covered him. Wired‘s Spencer Ackerman wrote a thoughtful piece (11/11/12) headlined “How I Was Drawn Into the Cult of David Petraeus.” He observed that “Petraeus recognized that the spirited back-and-forth that journalists like could be a powerful weapon in his arsenal.” He added:
To be clear, none of this was the old quid-pro-quo of access for positive coverage. It worked more subtly than that: The more I interacted with his staff, the more persuasive their points seemed.
So it wasn’t just that Petraeus and his staff kept in touch–they could also convince you that they were right.
But the self-reflection has its limits. On CNN‘s Reliable Sources (11/11/12), Howard Kurtz said this to USA Today reporter Jackie Kucinich:
But that access, Jackie Kucinich, that Petraeus granted to some journalists, military journalists and others, has really produced a lifetime of favorable coverage, of positive headlines. I mean, this is a guy who had a terrific image. At least in part–I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it, I’m not saying he didn’t accomplish a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking his own life, but in part because he courted the press.
Kurtz’s comments illustrate the limits of this criticism in corporate media: Petraeus’s accessibility no doubt impacted coverage, but his record as a military commander deserved much of the praise it received.
Journalist Michael Hastings, whose book The Operators takes a critical look at the Afghan War, had a much different view. “More so than any other leading military figure, Petraeus’ entire philosophy has been based on hiding the truth, on deception, on building a false image,” he argued (BuzzFeed, 11/11/12).
Hastings points to Petraeus’ failures in Iraq, starting with a troubled 2004 program to train Iraqi security forces. He adds:
On his final Iraq tour, during the so-called “surge,” he pulled off what is perhaps the most impressive con job in recent American history. He convinced the entire Washington establishment that we won the war.
And the “success” of Petraeus’ Iraq surge led to an escalation of the Afghan War based on the notion that the same could happen there. A critical assessment of Petraeus’s record could also be found on Democracy Now! (11/12/12), courtesy of guest Juan Cole. But those discussions were few and far between.
A more typical media reaction might be that of Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who writes (11/13/12) that Petraues should be replaced as head of the CIA with… Petraeus:
But now that it has all been done, is there a better man to fill Petraeus’s CIA seat than Petraeus himself? He is blackmail-proof and more than qualified for the job.
Sad that it did come to this, but not completely out of character for US military personnel. It does seem that ‘wars and affairs’ travel hand in hand.
There is a second affair/cheating scandal which is that networks, television, and some online, immediately moved over to coverage of this, and heavily, while the aftermath of Sandy (and also the Isaac aftermath which received a quick shut off of coverage) is still very much happening. Putting away coverage of a highly significant disaster in favor of something that concerns far few people, but that brings higher ratings: we’re not surprised, but we are newly appalled. Will FAIR find a way to see how much Sandy coverage dropped off as the media pursued a more appealing story?
I think this vomitous hero worship for a murderous bastard (it seems I use that term on a daily basis) reflects how corpress journalists, and those who deploy them, see themselves not as outsiders with a duty to honestly report on the actions of elites, but as part of those elites, and as such protective of it.
And I don’t have much for someone like Ackerman, who couldn’t see how he was being gamed from the get go.
Shouldn’t a skeptical mindset be standard equipment for anyone claiming to be a journalist?
As for Cole’s comments on DN!, they were much more focused on his tactical failures, not on the moral depravity of the imperial project he directed.
But that’s not an unexpected analysis from Cole, is it?
Lastly, the widows and widowers, the daughters and sons and friends of the dead from Afghanistan to Iraq to Pakistan to Yemen to Somalia to wherever else this man’s bloody hand can be seen, the horrors they’ve endured are mocked by this pathetic lamentation over Patraeus’ woes.
And with that, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m feeling a bit queasy at the moment.
It shows what a pedant I am, but Jesus didn’t turn stuff into gold. He did the trick with wine. What’s more, in the Midas story, turning everything into good was a BAD thing. Okay, I’ll stop now.
The media establishment have always lionized Petraues, but since this scandal, there has been a hilarious outbreak of man and lady crushes on the man. The quote from Andrea Mitchell above does not quite convey her adoration:
American Hero Gives Andrea Mitchell the Vapors
I don’t think that Petraues was any worse than any other military leader. What disgusts me about the media treatment of these men is how the actual work they do gets sanitized. And to top it off, even though they are above all politicians, they are covered as though they are above the fray and noble.
Rather than first adoring David Petraeus for no good reason and then forcing him out for no good reason, the media should be questioning him and other American military honchos about calling insurgencies wars.
The distinction is not insignificant. Since the heads of Iraq and Afghanistan have long been on our side, we have not been at war with them. Our adversaries in those two countries have not surrendered because they are not heads of state and in some cases are not even identifiable. By killing innocent civilians in both of these pathetically impoverished countries, we have achieved nothing but a sharply increased recruitment and expansion of their international anti-western revolution.
In other words, what General Petraeus has been so proudly proclaiming is precisely the opposite of what he has achieved, and despite his erudition and charm, as reported ad nauseam by our grossly incompetent media, we are well rid of him.
It just occurred to me, reading this post, that the media’s adoration of soldiers is probably akin to their adoration of jocks.
I’m not sure why everyone is so in love with that Spencer Ackerman piece (Glenn Greenwald kvelled over it as well). It is an interesting account of the tools of seduction Petreaus used on his all-too-willing media conquests, but doesn’t actually challenge the dominant, worshipful narrative much more than the other starstruck fans Peter Hart cites.
Ditto to commenter Frankly Curious noting the remarkable mixing of cliches relating to Jesus and Midas, with missing the point of the Midas story thrown in to boot. Very telling of our times.
Why are so many so much more forgiving of a few stray kills than a few stray f*cks?
Why isn’t the word “kill” considered to be too obscene to be expressed publicly as other than “k*ll”?
What Doug said. About them all he mentioned. We know the slavishness of alteredman already, but cole was taken out of context i hope in not denouncing the occupation.
These people like Petraeus are murderous, murderous, murderous scum. How they could be considered noble or heroic for a second boggles the mind.
good hear by FAIR, but all too genteel still…
I always wondered how Colin Powell felt hearing this piece of shit being called the greatest general since Ike
Maybe Mr. Petraeus should have spent more time with literature, and maybe read “Death of a Saleman,” by Arthur Miller.
Willy Loman had his lifer affecting affair too,even though, that character based his life on the mantra of “It’s important to be well liked..” Reality does seem to have a very hard and deadly bite. I also wondered if Mr. Petraeus was suffering from the Nixon Syndrome…..in thinking, I’m too high up and nothing can touch me… that kind of thinking seems to afflict politics and the military a lot.
It is always been obvious that he was “protected” by the major media and advanced by his on very effective PR. There was great praise for the successful(?) surge in Iraq, but the same policy attributed tod and enacted by Petraeus himself has not been openly criticized as ineffective and wasteful of many lives.
petraeus was a mediocrity. a PR man who couldnt have cut it as a commander of combat troops under Marshall, or Eisenhauer, or Patton or MacArthur…The meglomaniacs Patton or MacArthur would probably have used him as a press aide, for his “people skills”…maybe its a comment on our times..the vapid and the mindless in the media do sooooo long to be “historic”..they’ve seen all the movies about “the big one” and read all the books about Lincoln, and instead of saying ” GOD what venal and mediocre times we live in” and then reflecting on how boring venality and mediocrity are, They pretend a petraeus is Eisenhauer and Obama is Licoln and even Romney gets to be Nixon…we live in an age of fantasy and corruption for the priviledged, while the rest of us sink lower and lower into a truly spectacular and historic poverty.
Petraeus was a hired gun, who was willing to shoot anything the president, or the pentagon pointed to. How that gets him a rep for being a “scholar” or anything but the merciless killer he was is beyond me. He was blowing up villages in Afghanistan, knocking down houses in Iraq, imprisoning and torturing and rendering. He knows “counter insurgency”. ok and who might those “insurgents” be? they are the native populations of countries he has aggressively invaded and occupied , people who are defending themselves and their counties. Freedom fighters.
It is the reflection of a sick people, who idolize a paid killer. How sad.
Petraeus is idolized for being an excellent tool of racism/white supremacy. Too bad he wasn’t on the side of the peoples of the world. Just imagine him on the side of the Syrian people or the Palestinian people or black people here in the U. S.
Really absurd crap here.. I mean who knows if the sex going on here made Patraeus less of a friggin’ fighting man, or soldier, or not? Orgasms make for a better life experience all around, right?Then how has it taken away any of his successes or failures as a leader?I mean are we in a Victorian Era here?Isn’t this the 21st century?Hasn’t Masters&Johnson uncovered all the so called taboo around the sex act?Did Clinton’s little sexcapade, or release harm his leadership abilities, did the country go into the toilet because of it?Sounds like much ado over nothing.Humans are quite versatile, and have several areas of expertise that overlap, and how does one get in the way of other’s unless one talent is so detrimental it screws up the whole field, but it seems people’s reactions to Patraeus actions, is worse and does more harm than what Patraeus actually did.
Uh, forgot to mention soldier=killer, and Patraeus is responsible for all of the deaths and misery in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who gives a crap about his pleasures, he should be strung up, Chris Hayes a few months ago made a point about soldiers and gushing over them as heroes and was ripped apart by Neocons and the rightwinger nutjobs, no soldiers are heroes to me(some might say they are necessary and good in order to fight Islamic extremists), there is a fundamental reason how and why a group called al-Qeada came into existence, how are they different from the hateful KKK?.
I have a different take.The general was the top spy in the US.He was the big mahaff.The head honcho.And he got caught doing the dance with no pants!How good could he be? ;)
Friends,
It’s been my honor to serve the Army in and out of uniform. For the last 19 years, I have worked education and training issues for the Army Public Affairs Center, a field operating agency of the Chief of Public Affairs. Both the American public and our Army were well served by General Petraeus. In an age in which too many of our military and civilian leaders view the media as “the enemy,” Petraeus and his subordinates knew how to work with the media to tell their part of the Army’s story with candor, truth and alacrity. He has done no less as CIA’s director. His loss to public service is a loss to the nation.
Robert Walton
I think you’re kind of missing the point here, Bob Walton. But soldier on. He certainly knew how to “work” the media . . . .
Here’s a note for Bob Walton: Several years ago I heard Petraeus being grilled by Congress. He did not know how many American service personnel had died in Iraq and couldn’t name a figure. That seems about right for a man primarily devoted to self-aggrandizement and serving the interests of his sociopathic bosses.
I can’t believe that these “inteligent and reputable” sources are so bent out of shape because a man acted like a man. Why should you give a damn who he sleeps with? Has it made him less dependable? Less trustworthy? Get out of his bedroom, where you have no business any way. 1/2d
Such a perfect soldier brought down by an affair. Odd really but that Puritanical left overs remain. He would have no doubt have become another high govt official or even president.
For me it isn’t personal matters like that but how he acts as a military commander. He was no better than the others that find our external empire to be just fine and to keep it chugging along lubricated by those murdered by it. Not sorry to see him go.
Admiral Fallon, head of Centcom at the time, told Petraeus to his face that he considered him to be “an ass-kissing little chickenshit” and added, “I hate people like that”
We have really gone in dangerous directions and to dangerous lengths in terms of our militarization of politics. It is instructive how much our elite media appear to long for an authoritarian military presence in politics. We question not the mass slaughter with drones in undeclared wars but indeed celebrate those, such as Petraeus, who have armed the CIA and unleashed it on the world.
What a ‘pity, such a waste’ or is it? The whole affair appears to be apodeictic, at least on the first glance.
He discovered that he has been right at every preceeding stage of his carreer, only to deduce at the end the astonishing conclusion that he was at last entirely wrong. Self deception of being omnipotent.
I can’t say that I feel sorry for the fallen ‘primadona.’ He knew exactly what he was doing, his hubris was his ego, his ambition, and his hamartia his belief that once on top, he could not be dropped down. One should feel sorry for his wife, and all those soldiers who worshiped him, and looked UP TO HIM as a paragon of excellence. Further more, I feel very sorry for all those innocent men picked up as suspected Taliban, or Alkaeda ‘terrorists,’ who were needlessly tortured with full knowledge of our ‘doctor spook/general.’ And our press, licking the rear ends of the military, and the war machine captains, always ready to buy any fake story, or look the other way when somebody just mentions ‘national security’, the press that was /is supposed to print the truth, this institution failed again. Our press, media is serving the propaganda for our military leaders, not necessarily disseminating the truth, reporting the events as they really happen. They lie, obfuscate the truth, and decide for us what we should see, hear read, and know. They make the conclusions for us, and expect to be venerated as if they are the kingmakers.
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Do you know how I avoid duplicate iCal alerts? (Apple support does not, so far…) I think b/c of iCloud calendar sharing involving my husband and i, I am getting two alerts for every event on the iMac and on the iPhone. every thing is up to date and i possess a new MacBook Pro and the new iPhone 4s.