That was some thorough, in-depth reporting. Now if we can just get the same comprehensive coverage on Benghazi from a US news source. Besides Fox. Sigh.

House cleaning time at the Whitehouse. This has nothing to do with an affair. It is all about getting rid of the Bush/Clinton flakes and moving on to a whole 'nother bunch of imperial bozos.

I'd say that it removes Petraeus from a Republican presidential candidacy in 2016.

Other than that....meh.

I too wonder about "unpaid social liason officer". I saw a report that Dr. and Mrs. Kelley had hired a crisis management firm. I suppose that was coined by them.

If House Majority Leader Eric Cantor knew in late October, one has to wonder if the Romney campaign knew. Maybe this is why Mitt was so shy about Benghazi in the debates.

No, the term "crisis management firm" is pretty standard. Here in Portland, it was Gard & Gerber for a long time.

I know Gil the only one reporting on it is the independent FOX channel. The big news outlets just ignore this issue, a shame since it is such a huge problem.

...meanwhile, back in the real world. Patraeus was brought down because his mistress got into a spat with a prostitute? Nice.

"Nice to see you, General. Is this your wife, or is this a business trip?"

I am aware of Gard & Gerber.

The crisis managers in Tampa are busy tonight.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/11/petraeus-scandal-takes-turn-shirtless/58935/

I saw in the paper or network news that Obama only found out of his a couple days after the election. Someone should tell him about one of his ambassadors was murdered in Libya. The poor guy. He needs to take a vacation.

And the folks in Charlotte need crisis management as well.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/12/3660825/no-sign-of-paula-broadwell-woman.html

I think this shows Patreaus actually had no presidential aspitations. If he did, he could have merely said he had "caused pain in his marriage" and gone on to "not have sex" with an unpaid White House intern.

Paula Broadwell lives in Reille Hunter's neighborhood. 1.6 miles away.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/12/3661156/daily-beast-calls-dilworth-mistressville.html

The parallel's are startling.

That's all I have to say about that.

is that anything like being a "personal entertainment contractor?"

A second general (marine) has been caught up in the Jill Kelley vortex...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/13/john-allen-investigated-emails-petraeus-jill-kelley/1701651/

Is it me or do those Kelley twins look like the next round of Real Housewives of New Jersey?

Well, a third military General is busted, too:

(Nov. 13) It has been announced that four-star General William E. "Kip" Ward, the former African-American head of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), has been stripped of a star and forced to retire as a three-star general for lavish spending, including an expensive layover in Bermuda, and accepting gratuities, including free Broadway show tickets for him and his wife, from a defense contractor. General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, urged Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to allow Ward to retire as a four-star general, but Panetta ordered the reduction in rank that will cost Ward an estimated $30,000 a year in retirement pay. Ward's scheduled retirement in April 2011 was delayed until a full investigation was conducted on his spending habits during his assignment as the first chief of AFRICOM.

Only three implicated generals, that is, if you don't count the other two so far: "... worth noting that the involvement of Petraeus and other flag rank officers, including ousted U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) chief General Carter Ham and Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette, the commander of the Middle East-deployed USS John Stennis aircraft carrier strike force. ... WMR is being informed by sources throughout the military services that a number of senior military officers throughout the world were involved in the Romney campaign's Jimmy Carter Strategy to embarrass Obama prior to the election and that the insubordinate, if not treasonous, behavior extended to Petraeus's reported paramour, Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Paula Broadwell.

Well, there, the cat's out of the bag. Perhaps many folks might get a large charge out of the electrifying news that shocked politics watchers and state officials in world capitals overnight, following the story in the Wayne Madsen Report .com website 24hrs ago. Seems that a planned coup d'etat is now caught in the act of attempted overthrow of the President of the U.S.

As WMR explained:

The Washington Post and The New York Times, America's designated "newspapers of record" -- false record, it should be added -- are working overtime to spin the General David Petraeus scandal away from the actual story. There are many details that have not yet emerged and some informed speculation remains the order of the day. However, based on what we now know, a perhaps somewhat unwitting Petraeus; several Republicans, including failed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Republican Party Svengali Karl Rove, Romney adviser Dan Senor; and the Binyamin Netanyahu government in Israel were involved behind the scenes to discredit and ensure the electoral downfall of President Barack Obama by engineering what Romney reportedly himself described as a "Jimmy Carter Strategy" in an October Surprise. The strategy was to bring about an incident in the Middle East that would result in a besieged or overrun U.S. embassy, like the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and 1980, that would result in charges that Obama, like Carter, was weak and ineffectual in dealing with a major crisis. Such a scenario would erase the street credentials Obama pocketed in the "raid" on Osama bin Laden. Raid is in quotes because the jury remains out on whether the U.S. Navy SEAL attack on the compound in Abbottabad actually resulted in Bin Laden's death or was a staged event to boost Obama's national security resumé. But that is another story for the time being.

Romney appears to be at the center of the Jimmy Carter Strategy ....

... according to Republican Representatives Dave Reichert (R-WA) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), an unidentified FBI agent leaked the Petraeus affair story first to Reichert. ... Cantor's chief of staff, Steven Sombres, it is being reported, phoned the FBI on October 31 .... Sombres along with Cantor's deputy chief of staff Doug Heye have been identified as key players in the FBI leak story. However, they were also identified as FBI targets in an event that took place a little less than two months before Petraeus became CIA director. Cantor led an 80-member House congressional delegation (CODEL) to Israel in August 2011. On the evening of August 18, members of Cantor's staff, and some 30 Republican Representatives were involved in a skinny-dipping incident at the David Citadel Hotel in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. The CODEL was funded by the American Israel Educational Foundation, a branch of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Representative Kevin Yoder (R-KS) was identified as one of the skinny dippers. Also participating in the late night bathing were Sombres, Tim Berry, chief of staff for GOP Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA); Laena Fallon, Cantor’s former press aide; and Emily Murray, a top policy aide to McCarthy. Several congressmen and their aides reportedly got drunk at the hotel before they jumped into the sea. Joining the swim party were Representatives Steve Southerland (R-FL) and his daughter; Tom Reed (R-NY) and his wife; Ben Quayle (R-AZ), Jeff Denham (R-CA), and Michael Grimm (R-NY).

The FBI investigated the Galilee incident for possible Israeli intelligence compromise of the House members and their staff. However, the FBI never revealed the outcome of its investigation. It was Heye who announced that Cantor had satisfied the FBI's concerns. If the FBI's investigation continued, other doors may have opened, doors that led to a planned 2012 "October Surprise" against the President -- doors that led to Cantor's involvement with the Romney campaign in staging the October Surprise. Romney's senior foreign policy aide was Dan Senor, who is close to Netanyahu and Cantor.

[WMR:] "It is also suspected that (in Benghazi, Ambassador Christopher) Stevens and his own background may have involved him in covert side assignments for the CIA. Stevens may have been made aware of the use of some CIA and Pentagon assets to plot with Romney against Obama." ...

[WMR:] "Washington Post fixture Bob Woodward reported that the Romney campaign offered him a "source" with detailed knowledge of the Benghazi attacks during the last week of October. Who may that source have been? A photograph has emerged of Broadwell with Romney campaign strategist Karl Rove on June 11, 2012."

[WMR:] "Rove has long been rumored to have close links to certain CIA operations .... The Broadwell connection to Rove is key. .... Obama never allowed himself to be drawn into the trap laid for him over Benghazi by Romney, Rove, disloyal military officers, and some CIA elements. There are indications the conspiracy against Obama was large. The same day that Petraeus resigned, officially over an "extramarital affair," Christopher Kubisek, the incoming CEO of America's largest defense contractor, Lockeed Martin, was fired by the company's board for a "close, personal relationship" with a subordinate. If such a series of resignations and forced retirements were to occur in other countries, the CIA would call them a government purge ...."

I have tried to limit this Comment to highlights of the WMR story. Altogether the details and plotline surely shocks the WMR subscriber base, which is small but select and includes heads of state and their staffs in capitals around the world.

WMR compares Patraeus's situation with that of Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, " approached by treasonous Republicans who wanted to oust President Franklin Roosevelt in a coup in 1934, playing along with the plotters until he could amass enough evidence to rat them out to the Congress. Petraeus is in a position to identify the treasonous plotters of 2012. They obviously include Cantor, Rove, Romney, Ham, and others who are, as yet, unidentified."

The 1934 plot of a coup against FDR named Prescott Bush among those involved. Comparisons with other infamous disloyalty (anti-America) plots seems reasonable for the 'grandiose' scale they have in common; viz., the CIA involvement with murdering JFK; the 'original' October Surprise, 1980, in which (Reagan) Republicans illegally supplied military materiel to Iran(!); or, even, Nine-Eleven Op. In those three, the first included Prescott and his son Geo H W Bush among names 'in the know;' the second included G.H.W.Bush being Reagan's V.P. candidate; the third involved him and his son Geo. 'Dubya' Bush under whose presidential watch Nine-Eleven Op was conducted.

During all the Grand Plots & Schemes in modern American history, the observing public was left guessing at what was going on in the distraction of insignificant details, secret or false testimony in Congress's Hearings, and censorship or suppression of massmedia 'news' reports. This time, however, we can compile information through the internet.