Enough With the Mad Men Mores: The Generals Are Not the Victims

[obamanut2012]

There they go again -- powerful men having illicit affairs while their apologists blame the women. Didn't we just vote to reject these Mad Men mores in last week's election? Apparently not everyone got the message.

These are the facts: Generals David Petraeus and John Allen exchanged torrents of emails with women not their wives. Petraeus had a relationship with his biographer and Allen exchanged voluminous emails with his female friend while both generals were supposed to be waging war and defending our country in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and around the world. The FBI, CIA, Pentagon, House and Senate are all looking into the chain of events to see whether and how national security was breached and military codes of conduct violated.

Both men will pay with their jobs. Both men will be cautionary tales. But what is the moral of their stories? That smart people do stupid things? Yes. That some secret keepers can't keep secrets? Yes. That the "e" in email stands for evidence? Yes. That there is no such thing as a private email on the "world wide web?" Yes. That human beings being human make lamentable mistakes? Yes. That the generals are victims of the women? Absolutely not.

Generals Allen and Petraeus are many things -- but victims they are not. There are victims here -- starting with the spouses and children and the children of the four consenting adults. There may be other victims as well -- such as service members and security personnel sacrificing their lives under the command of men who were not 100% focused on the task at hand. But the generals are not the victims and their enablers need to stop blaming the women.

Young folks call it "slut shaming" -- and Mother Jones reporter Kate Shappard has a pretty nasty compilation of the verbiage directed at Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell: <snip>


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-pelosi/enough-with-the-mad-med-m_b_2122718.html

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A friend posted this on FB this morning. REALLY good article.