The Petraeus Scandal: When Supposedly Smart People Do Definitely Dumb Things

[Sub-titled: Keep It Zipped, People]

Because I’m smitten with this developing story…

You’re Not Going To Believe The Latest Developments In The Petraeus Sex Scandal

But you know there’s more to this than you might think at first glance…

Clusterf*ck Chart 

Then you have to realize that from my laid back point of view it is entertaining that… 

Woman Linked to Petraeus Is a West Point Graduate and Lifelong High Achiever

It is, of course, ironic that…

Online Anonymity Nearly Impossible, Petraeus Emails Show

If confused by any of the foregoing, then you need to remember…

General David Petraeus’s Rules for Living

Then there’s this little development…

Classified(?) Information Magically Appears at Broadwell’s House

Also, what’s a military sex scandal without a reporter named Bonk involved?

Paula Broadwell’s License Discovered in D.C. Park

Not to mention that just like in a soap opera there is an identical twin sister…

Jill Kelley and Twin Closely Tied to Top Brass

A twin sister who needed two generals to vouch for her…

Petraeus & Allen dallied as furor over Benghazi raged

And finally, the last piece of this scandal yet to be revealed…

WHO IS THE SHIRTLESS FBI AGENT?

Meet the Shirtless FBI Agent from the Petraeus Love Pentagon

Can you see why I’m intrigued?  It’s RHONY + The Simpson’s + NCIS all in one story.  Who’d of thought?!

[Last link added 11.15.12 – YES! I can rest now that I have all the pieces of the story.]

Three Changes I’ve Made During The 2012 Presidential Election Campaign

1.  I’ve started watching CBS news.  I used to watch ABC, but our local affiliate could not shut up about the national election.  It was weird.

So I clicked over onto CBS and discovered that our local affiliate talked about [get this] local news & weather & traffic.  And that CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose, Gayle King & Norah O’Donnell is a delight.  No sales pitches. No silliness. No crowds of onlookers.  Just [get this] news & intelligent discussion & quiet humor.

In other words, my kind of people.

2.  I decided to boycott a business because this small, local business put up way too many political signs in front of its store.  While it is a right for any business to do this, it is also my right to stop frequenting an establishment because of it.  There are consequences for extreme partisanship– and one is the loss of customers who believe that politics is a personal matter, not part of a business plan.

[In fairness, I cannot take credit for this idea.  A friend pointed out to me that she had stopped going to her doctor because this doctor had become so blatantly political outside & inside her practice, that my friend walked away from the practice.]

There is a time & place for all things.

3.  I have learned to drive more slowly and with much more awareness.  Those darned lawn signs obscure who or what might be darting out from behind them.  Small children & pets are drawn to those signs, and more than once I’ve hit the brakes while driving through suburbia because I’ve noticed suspicious movement around the signs.

I understand that to many people political signs are a right… a need… an important way to make a difference.  So if you do put them out in front of your property, please consider putting them up close to your house instead of by the street.  I know they’ll be less visible, but doing such might avert a horrible accident.

Just saying, no offense intended…

Desperately Seeking Votes

WE live in a political battleground state. Regardless of which side of the aisle you favor, this is not a great thing.  Since the middle of August we have been inundated daily with TV and radio ads, as well as one or more of the following:

  • robocalls
  • personal phone calls
  • telephone opinion polls
  • political mailings
  • lawn signs
  • people at the front door
  • bumper stickers on cars.

• • •

FOR those of you not living in a battleground state it’s difficult to get across to you how intrusive*, annoying & wasteful this really is.  I’ve never seen a presidential campaign like this one that diminishes the office of president and insults a voter’s intelligence with incessant gibberish and visual clutter.  It’s quite something.

• • •

• • • 

WHILE I trust that the election on Tuesday will put an end to this nonsense for now, I worry that this 2012 presidential election will become the prototype for all future elections.  Because I fear that the lesson of this election is: if you want to make sure that no one gives a flying fig through a donut hole about who wins an election, bother the electorate every day until they are just too tired to care about it any more.  Then railroad your candidate through.

• • • 

[H/T to Pied Type for the YouTube link.]

[H/T to Carmine Coyote & his defunct blog, Slow Leadership, for the cartoon.  Image & link removed because spammers could not leave it alone.]

[* Case in point: while writing this post yesterday afternoon I’ve received two phone calls.  One was a real person who told me who to vote for and then hung up on me without so much as a thank you for listening or a goodbye.  The other was a robocall from a doctor somewhere in Washington, D.C.]

[Further: Throughout the rest of the day I received two more unsolicited political phone calls.  One was a robocall from a nurse in Chicago.  The other was a robocall from an actor in CA.]