It isn't the sex, it's the blackmail potential and the cover up.

If you haven't watched this story line on TV or movies, it's standard fare for affairs. And David Petraeus, military hero and head of the CIA, was blackmailed--but by the White House. Or attempted blackmail--it looks like he wouldn't play along--although the Benghazi story just keeps growing. Let's see if he'll testify, or if they have something even bigger on him. Meanwhile, you can count on our media to only investigate the sex story.

I've heard 2 interviews today with Newt Gingrich about his new book, but since he was a candidate earlier in the year, he's asked about the current scandal with Petraeus and now another guy (I'm losing track) also connected to one of the women with 30,000 pages of e-mail. I wanted to yell POT KETTLE (Newt is a serial philanderer and had to have 2 marriages annulled to marry his current wife), but I also realize this is not about sex despite how the media plays it. It's about blackmail and a huge cover up and a president who is unfaithful to the people who elected him.

Do I think the Petraeus affair if known before the election would have changed things? No. 1) The general electorate hadn't even heard about Benghazi so they would have said, big deal, some guy was unfaithful to his wife. 2) Nothing would stop an Obama supporter from voting. 3) A Petraeus affair wouldn't get the Christians and Republicans to the polls who already believed it wouldn't matter. What's important is Obama apparently thought it would matter, and he did yet another cover up.

Since Sept. 11, 2012 no one in the administration has told us the truth. But they practiced for 4 years to get it right. Half of the electorate will follow him anywhere.

No, No Newt

Just watched him being interviewed on Fox--about his rather messy, unfaithful-to-wives personal life, and being a hypocrite about it besides. Let him stay on the side lines as a king/queen maker, but don't, please don't, put us through another Clintonesque presidency.

Sports and Greed

Recent events in science, politics, national security and the economy have caused many of us to completely lose faith in our so called “free and independent press,” because broadcast and print journalists carried the water for Obama in 2007-2008, downplayed the pinholes in the expanding housing bubble when there was still time to do something, research institutions and gatekeepers of the peer review sources manipulated data and blacklisted colleagues for the sake of government grants and personal gain in science, and cable, new media “fact checkers” and news aggregators played up every mistake of the military during the Bush years while ignoring the big picture with an end result of helping our enemies. The final straw has been the Tiger Woods story, at least for me. Yesterday I was reading How Tiger Protected his Image, in the WSJ. As I tried to work my way through the convoluted, complex story of Tiger’s deal with Golf Digest, I stumbled over many other media sources--Conde Nast, Tiger Woods’ own foundation, American Media, Inc., The National Enquirer, Men’s Fitness, News of the World, News Corp., Woods’ handlers, representatives, photographers, Laveley & Singer law firm in LA, spokespeople, editors, Media Industry Newsletter, and finally (but not the first) the hapless, untipped waitress in the church parking lot and her family.

And no, this isn’t just a story about sex, or even possible redemption, which for some reason many Christian writers are playing up. It’s a story about a systemic problem--greed. When his wife or babies test positive for an STD, then maybe we can say it’s about infidelity and sex, but in the meantime, the sports and information industries have some explaining to do their values.

Yes and Yes

Why do they need to waste more money on an investigation? His salary comes from the taxes of the people of South Carolina, so he used taxpayer money because it was on their time. If the lieutenant governor knew where he was, then he lied, and he should go too. Any money Sanford uses to "pay it back" also belongs to his wife, who helped get him where he is today--the governor's mansion. If I were her I'd clamp that bank account, safe deposit box, automobile, real estate, stock ownership and house shut like yesterday. She and the children should not have to pay for his catting around and it's expensive to raise children through college when you've just lost your job. She should learn from Mrs. Edwards' example.

"Democratic leaders want an investigation into Sanford's use of state money to help pay for an earlier South America trip. Others are questioning whether the governor broke laws by leaving without giving the lieutenant governor control." AP report