[livius]

That’s a very good point. Obama evidently believed at one point just before the GOP convention that Romney was going to ask Petraeus to be his VP, so this was probably going to be the classic Obama-style October Surprise (always something sleazy and personal).

However, it was a win-win for Obama, because he probably now feels that this discredits Petraeus and anything he might say about Benghazi. That said, I think people here are seriously overestimating Petraeus. He’s a military man, and thus loyal to whoever is in charge. Right now, that’s Obama.

I don’t think Petraeus’ civilian status as CIA director and now as just plain civilian is going to change his loyalty to Obama.

But it would be nice to be proved wrong.

[Alberta's Child]

Romney never had any intention of asking Petraeus to be his running mate. The evidence of this is that Romney's team went to such great lengths to ignore anything related to Afghanistan or the so-called "war on terror" from his campaign. Selecting Obama's CIA director as his running mate would have made something too obvious to voters: Both major parties are on the same side of almost every major issue in the U.S. today.