what does the david petraeus "affair" really tell us about how we are led? ....

i am not concerned about the issues surrounding david petraeus's infidelity.  buy a kama sutra, if that titillates you.

what interests me is what it tells us about the professional competence of those who lead us, specifically about a director of the u.s. central intelligence agency who cannot keep his affairs secret.

read this very interesting post at salon, "paula broadwell's big mistake," http://www.salon.com/2012/11/16/paula_broadwells_big_mistake/ .  it describes in some detail, (how obtained i have no idea unless some gubment types leaked it), those measures undertaken by broadwell and petraeus to keep their liaisons "secret."

they simply did not know the technical things they could have done to secure their "private" communications, nor how easily they were to be obtained by investigators.

consider that for just a moment.  a director of an intelligence agency who doesn't know the most rudimentary aspects of trade craft, or, spy craft, if you will.

this is the guy who is running the central intelligence agency.

he doesn't know the first damned thing about protecting and securing his own communication.  or, that in the absence of some prudence, that his most intimate thoughts and communications were easily obtainable.  (perhaps even by the author of the blog post above, without any leaks from any gubment handlers.)

think about it.

if the guy who is running a spy agency doesn't know the first thing about spying, then he really isn't running the agency at all, is he?  and, the if the guy doesn't know anything about trade craft, not even in its rudimentary forms, he doesn't have any clue whatsoever as to how to manage the information that comes to him, nor the slightest inkling in how it was obtained.

reliability?  source?

how to know it, accept to acknowledge what your handlers tell you?

in short, david petraeus was not running the c.i.a., and whatever information he gleaned from its operations was spoon fed him, and the spills wiped onto his bibs.  he, in fact, simply sat in the high chair, waved his arms and legs in the air, and happily gurgled forth the froth and sputum from his lips onto his front, and said what he was told to say.

i can just see them wiping the goo from his face with a wet towel.  

david petraeus was, to put the matter succinctly, simply a figure head to say what others told him to say.

he had no experience, no expertise, no grasp of the matters at hand, to do otherwise.

so, if david petraeus was spoon fed, what are you?

the implication is clear.  you know precisely what david petraeus's handlers want you to know.

john jay @ 10.18.2012

p.s.  that means that david petraeus, one way or the other, did not know shit about what happened at benghazi.  that means his opinions on what happened at benghazi are pretty much worthless.

this means that what he told the congressional committee is worthless.   and, the fact that the house members running the show don't know this, calls into question what they think they know.  if they are relying on petraeus's word on the matter, they know precious little.

unless, of course, he was of the habit of reading conservative blogs.  which i doubt, because his interests and extra-curricular activities seemed to lead other places besides an interests in the truth.

did he ever understand, even in the terms of simple fact, that chris stevens was not taken from a "safe house," but drug out of a laundry room?*** do you?

do you understand what it means when your government officials talk in terms of a "safe house," or a "safe residence," on the embassy grounds?   well, let me suggest, that it confirms that you are being lied to.

do people lie to you, except to protect their own interests?  governments?  presidents?

*** i determined this fact by examining photos in the daily mail, purporting to be of the interior of the "safe house"/"safe room."  i have never seen anywhere that the authenticity of these photos is in the least bit questioned.

how did i deduce the room was a laundry room?  quite a simple matter, really.  the room contained a washing machine, a sink at a window torn out and on the floor beneath the window, an ironing board if i remember correctly, and a cabinet drawer ripped open, and askew, with a plastic tray for utensils in it, utensils at the bottom of the drawer.

some other stuff.

you figure it out.  you'd better, you won't be hearing about it anytime soon on the news.

Comments

[sDee]

Post turtles john jay. Placed there because they act as required, extorted and rewarded as needed.

Yet the narrative always holds.

How does a complex system like the US Federal Government move unhindered, unquestioned, consistently, and steadily to authoritarian rule, when comprised of unarguably corrupt, ineffective and witless politicians and bureaucrats?

[john jay]

sDee:

"post turtles," it is. just as curious as to how they got there, as anybody else.

laughing. sums it up pretty well.

bureaucrats.

the law of agencies and regulatory power is very interesting, and, for the most part, appellate court fashioned.

the court decisions recognize the authority of agencies to adopt regulations over that which they are authorized by congress: the "delegation of authority" doctrine has grown to be a license to agencies to regulate, instead of a restraint upon their authority to do so.

the courts recognize in agencies familiarity with the subject matter, and some recognition of authority by virtue of this "expertise."

so, there's your regulation.

the courts also say that agencies are to be granted considerable latitude in the interpretation of their own rules, to the exclusion of courts to intervene in such interpretation of the reach and breadth of rules & regs.

well, the agencies play this like a fiddle.

the result is, when combined with the presidential authority to issue presidential orders, means that agencies have basically supplanted congress when it comes to regulation of commerce, environmental things, the like.

if congress did not have "the power of the purse" it would be largely without any authority at all.

in short, the courts have given the executive the ability, for good or ill, to conduct our governance.

i agree with most of what you say.

the agencies are remarkably leftist, and hostile to any notion of restraint upon government.

and, bureaucrats are venal, and arrogant. they are not, however, witless.

would it were so.

instead they are implacably hostile to limited government, and seek to intrude upon everything we do.

kafkaesque, you might say. (i hope that's a word. laughing.)

thanks, sDee, for the read and the comment. come back always. you always have something worthwhile to note.

john jay

[sDee]

This explains a lot....the unchecked abuse of power by Executive Branch, Congress rendering itself irrelevant by failing to curb it, and most of all, the recent exponential centralization of power by those who see the opportunity.

My use of 'bureaucrat' was too broad as I was thinking of the likes of Petreaus, Panetta, Rice and the like. They are appointed, not the calculating entrenched bureaucrats who cultivate power as you lay out.

You've a unique perspective on this landscape and run ahead of us john jay. Speaking for myself, I give this all a shot and manage to digest a bite at a time :)

I am always wary of things that are far more complex than need be...far too much accidental complexity in this treachery. Intentional. My gut just tells me that the essential complexity of this, although well masked, is not so complex at all, but essentially ugly and evil.

[john jay]

sDee:

very purposeful, all of it.

it is yet to be seen whether this country survived the 1960's.

it resides in the governmental bureaucracy we have all around us.

john