A General Lesson: Why did he risk everything on an affair?

Slate ^ | November 10, 2012 | Fred Kaplan

[billorites]

Among those who have long known Gen. David Petraeus, those who served under his command in wartime, sat with him in the White House Situation Room, or helped him rewrite Army doctrine at Fort Leavenworth, the most gnawing question about the scandalous affair that led to his resignation and doomed his career on Friday is this: How could he—this acclaimed leader and figure of rectitude—allow such a thing to happen?

Seen in context, the mystery, while shocking, is not so unfathomable.

Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom he had this affair, writes in her fawning biography of Petraeus that they first met when she was in graduate school at Harvard and he came to give a talk about counterinsurgency strategy. She approached him afterward and expressed interest in the subject; they exchanged cards. Soon, she decided to write a Ph.D. dissertation on his leadership style and, when he took command in Afghanistan, asked if she could come observe him in action. He agreed.

The key to this initial attraction was probably not sexual but rather biographical. Broadwell had once been a West Point cadet, like Petraeus. Upon graduating, she’d joined the light infantry officers’ corps as a paratrooper, as had Petraeus in his youth. She was obsessed with physical fitness, especially running, as was Petraeus. In short, regardless of gender, Broadwell was exactly the sort of aspiring officer-intellectual that Petraeus was keen to mentor.

The impulse was not unique to Petraeus. It grew out of the ethos of West Point’s social science department, where Petraeus had taught in the mid-1980s. The department, known as “Sosh,” was founded just after World War II by a visionary ex-cadet and Rhodes Scholar named George A. “Abe” Lincoln. Toward the end of the war, as the senior planning aide to Army Chief of Staff

[MestaMachine]

Bipeds. Saves time. LOL

[sauropod]

Some people do it b/c they can.

Some people do it b/c their shack-up buddy is a social climber, and they blow sunshine up the other person's nether regions.

From what I've been reading, that appears to be the case here.

[ken5050]

I’m surprised that no one has yet dug up Braodwell’s class album from WP..the cadets are often scathing in their assessment of their fellow classmates..it’d be interesting to see what they wrote about her..