Adele Ferguson:Did the CIA director not know?

THE THING that annoys me the most about General Petraeus is not that he had an extramarital affair, it’s that he lied to us about Benghazi.

At the time, that is, when the President, the secretary of state, the ambassador to the United Nations and others including Petraeus, were telling us that the attack on our consulate was triggered by rage over a video movie made in the U.S. that insulted Muhammed.

Everyone who spoke knew it was not true. Knew that the attack that killed four Americans was by terrorists. Your average spontaneous riot doesn’t include mortars and rockets. It usually involves the throwing of rocks.

The person I really feel sorry for in the Petraeus affair is the wife. Mrs. Petraeus, like most wives of 35 or 40 years duration, shows her years. She is no longer the beauty she probably was when he wooed and won her, the daughter of the superintendent at West Point. The girlfriend, however, Paula Broadwell, is gorgeous.

IT’S EASY to understand the general’s attraction to her. Old men are often known for trophy wives or at least a trophy hottie for cold nights.

As for her attraction to him, there’s an old saying, the only person I ever heard it attributed to being Henry Kissinger, that power is the greatest aphrodisiac. David Petraeus is no George Clooney but he was one of the most powerful men on earth before throwing in the towel on being exposed.

That would certainly attract a woman of Mrs. Broadwell’s background as a graduate of West Point, an Army Reserve officer and the general’s official biographer despite a total lack of experience in either writing books or journalism. She too is married with children but her husband has nowhere near the clout of a four star general.

ONE WOULD THINK that with their backgrounds, the general and his paramour were smart cookies who would know how to keep such a liaison from going public, but they never learned the first thing about keeping secrets.

Which is, if you ever write or take pictures and correspond via computer, it will never, ever again be a secret. Your average fourth grader could probably have hacked into their correspondence. The general also apparently didn’t take into consideration the possibility that when he found it convenient or necessary to end their romance, she didn’t, writing harassing e-mails to another gorgeous dish she suspected was replacing her.

Odd how the FBI jumped to investigate when told about it. But then, the new hottie also was acquainted with the general. Also with another general but that’s another column.

By this time the general may have testified on what really happened in Benghazi. It was my initial suspicion that the reason he quit was to avoid testifying. Because if he is sworn to the truth he might have to reveal that the president lied about it and was fully aware the attack was not over the video but terrorism, a word our president hates to even say out loud. Petraeus as career Army would obey his superiors without question including protecting the commander in chief from being exposed as a liar.

WATCH THE CAREFUL WAY various politicians and government officials respond to questions about Petraeus. Are they being super cautious because they too may be involved in similar liaisons but just haven’t been caught yet?

Does this happen in Olympia too? You bet. I’ve kept quite a few secrets through the years that I will never write about or mention on a computer. I don’t care what they do privately so long as it doesn’t affect the performance of their jobs.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)