CIA director David Petraeus resigns citing extramarital affair.

[57Chevy]

Well lets face it,  the guys a chick magnet.

He's the guy posers try to imitate. ;D

 

[Nemo888]

She stated that the more she works in Health Services, the more she thinks human beings are not monogamus by nature. I tend to agree.

Bwahaha, me too. The gift that keep on giving must still be making the rounds. Line ups in the morning ladies and gentlemen. Medics prefer to drink coffee and shoot the shit, not earn their pecker checker/ punani prognosticator nick name.

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting in two ways:

1. The General visited Libya after the terrorist attack, something generally not known before now, and filed a report on the situation

2. The report is being held; even the Democrat Chair of the Senate Intelligence committee is unable to access this (which should be part of their normal remit; the committee has access to the same intelligence sources as the President), and is now threatening to subpoena the Agency to get it.

So there is a lot of information out there that is missing or being drowned out in a flood of titillating but irrelevant scandal mongering:

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/13/feinstein-ill-subpoena-cia-about-petraeus-trip-to-libya-after-benghazi-attack/

Feinstein: I’ll subpoena CIA about Petraeus trip to Libya after Benghazi attack
posted at 8:51 am on November 13, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

One piece of information that got lost the last few days of sex scandals is the news that David Petraeus personally traveled to Libya after the Benghazi attack — and apparently filed a “trip report” covering his own findings.  Senator Dianne Feinstein, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee probing the Benghazi terrorist attack, wants either the report or Petraeus to testify to its contents.  So far, though, the CIA and the White House have refused to provide it — and yesterday, Feinstein threatened that subpoenas may be forthcoming if the stonewalling continues:

“The premise is not necessarily an investigation,” Feinstein said, speaking of an investigation into Petraeus. “The premise is to see exactly what happened. I believe that Director Petraeus made a trip to the region, shortly before this became public. I believe that there is a trip report. We have asked to see the trip report. One person tells me he has read it, and then we tried to get it and they tell me it hasn’t been done. That’s unacceptable. We are entitled to this trip report, and if we have to go to the floor of the Senate on a subpoena, we will do just that.”

Host Andrea Mitchell asked Feinstein for clarification, and Feinstein explained that trip would include “relevant information.”

“Yes,” she replied. “For the very reason that it may have some very relevant information to what happened in Benghazi.”
This seems more than passingly curious.  Why wouldn’t the CIA share the trip report with Feinstein? First of all, the Congressional intelligence committees in both chambers are entitled to see it as part of their oversight responsibilities over the agency, especially given the fact that the report comes after a terrorist attack that Congress has an obvious interest in investigating.  On top of that, Feinstein and the Senate committee are arguably a more friendly venue than the House committees looking into the attack.

This lack of openness, coming on the heels of the revelations of Petraeus’ affair and his resignation, will only raise more questions about why Petraeus is no longer testifying, and why he was so quick to get out of the way.  When a Democratic Senator has to go on MSNBC to threaten a Democratic administration with a subpoena, well …. it should raise a few eyebrows.

 

[Jarnhamar]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-horrified-to-learn-about-war-in-afghanistan,30367/

Nation Horrified To Learn About War In Afghanistan While Reading Up On Petraeus Sex Scandal

 

[cupper]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-horrified-to-learn-about-war-in-afghanistan,30367/

Nation Horrified To Learn About War In Afghanistan While Reading Up On Petraeus Sex Scandal

What, there's a war going on in Afghanistan? When did that happen?

 

[cupper]

Apparently the makers of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 didn't vet their characters well enough.

Petraeus a now unlikely defense secretary in Call of Duty

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57549396-1/petraeus-a-now-unlikely-defense-secretary-in-call-of-duty/

More than a decade in the future, we'll see a still-strapping Secretary of Defense David Petraeus greeting troops aboard the decks of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Barack Obama.

OK, so that reality seems a little less likely in our world of carbon-based life forms now that Petraeus has resigned his CIA post amid an adultery scandal, but it's still very much part of the digital world in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

The designers at Activision Blizzard thought the much-admired General made the most sense for a future leader of the U.S. military, and few would have disagreed with the choice before it was revealed last week that Petraeus had been engaging in his own secret ops with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.

In fact, the scandal broke and Petraeus resigned on Friday, just a few days before long-awaited game launched for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

But it was too late, and there stands future SecDef Petraeus on the digital deck of the Obama.

The disgraced general's role in the game is actually pretty limited, but the company obviously thought it was a hot enough topic to issue this statement to reporters:

General Petraeus was not paid, was not involved in the creation of the game, and has not been asked to endorse the game. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and its fictional storylines are aimed at providing fun and enjoyment. It is clear to game players that his character and others that are based on real-life figures are fantasy. Including Gen. Petraeus and other real-life figures was strictly a creative decision made many months ago when the storyline was drafted. We are not commenting further on the latest news or Gen. Petraeus. His service to his country and career accomplishments are a matter of public record.

With Petraeus' career in public service coming to an apparent end, it's likely he'll find plenty of opportunities in the private sector. Perhaps he could follow in the footsteps of Lt. Col. Oliver North, who met with plenty of scandal in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, and most recently served as a military adviser... to the creators of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

There is a video clip of Petraeus meeting with other characters on the carrier USS Barack Obama. (yes, you read that right)

 

[Kat Stevens]

What I want to know is, when will the CBC uncover the facts it needs to squarely lay the blame for the whole thing at PM Harper's feet?

 

[GAP]

What I want to know is, when will the CBC uncover the facts it needs to squarely lay the blame for the whole thing at PM Harper's feet?

Well.....they've been known to hold tight to info until the time was ripe.....when is the new rating season starting?.... :

 

[Brad Sallows]

You mean Broadwell isn't Harper in drag?

 

[cupper]

You mean Broadwell isn't Harper in drag?

That's an image I'll have nightmares about! >

 

[skyhigh10]

Sad that this is even news.

At days end, the man is still a human being like the rest of us. I will not remember him as an adulterous boogy man who jeopardized national security. As much as I feel for his wife and family, I do not think the mans sex life has to do with his ability to serve his country honourably.

 

 

[The Bread Guy]

The Taliban's take....

The sex scandal that has brought down CIA chief David Petraeus may be causing heartache in the Washington security establishment but the affair has prompted laughter among the Taliban.

Petraeus resigned last week to pre-empt revelations of an affair with his married biographer Paula Broadwell, bringing to an end a glittering military career that included a spell commanding NATO forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

A stony-faced Taliban official burst into laughter at the mention of the Petraeus affair during an interview with AFP in northwest Pakistan this week.

The Islamists dealt harshly with adulterers during their brutal 1996-2001 rule in Afghanistan, dishing out public floggings for offenders.

The traditional moral code of the Pashtuns, the main ethnic group the Taliban draw their members from, also demands severe punishment for adulterers.

"From a Pashtun point of view, Petraeus should be shot by relatives from his mistress's family," the Taliban official explained.

"From a Shariah point of view, he should be stoned to death." ....

Emirates 24/7, 15 Nov 12

 

[a_majoor]

More "fail" on the story. Stonewalling and ever changing timelines only serves to make the revelations far more damaging and dragging down more people when the truth finally arrives. You can bet a fair amount that more and more people are starting to look at what they know and their place in the food chain, and starting to consider if stonewalling or leaking information will serve to best protect their own careers and positions:

http://pjmedia.com/blog/more-hot-air-from-white-house-and-eric-holder/

More Hot Air From White House and Eric Holder
Posted By David Truman On November 16, 2012 @ 12:44 pm In Homeland Security,Legal,US News | 21 Comments

The claim by Eric Holder that it was right to keep the FBI investigation of General Petraeus secret from the White House, along with Jay Carney’s claim that the White House was not informed of the investigation of the General Petraeus affair until after the election because of “FBI protocols,” doesn’t hold water. Sources are claiming in news reports [1] that “it is long-standing FBI policy for the FBI not to brief Congress or the White House in the middle of a criminal probe that does not involve a security threat.” Holder now says that “we do not share outside the Justice Department, outside the FBI, the facts of ongoing investigations.”

But those claims by Holder and Carney are demonstrably false.

The Petraeus affair did involve a security threat, although it started out as an investigation of anonymous emails sent to Jill Kelley by Paula Broadwell, who the FBI quickly identified as Petraeus’s mistress. By having an affair with Ms. Broadwell, the head of the CIA risked being blackmailed, and his poor judgment and use of personal emails raised the possibility that he was improperly disclosing classified information to her. In fact, reports indicate that the FBI found classified information when it searched the computer of his mistress, although she claims she didn’t get it from Petraeus. She also apparently bragged about having access to classified information [2] while researching her book about Petraeus’s work in Afghanistan.

Obviously, such an FBI protocol against disclosing criminal investigations to the White House except for those involving security concerns would not apply to this investigation.  The possible security risk was posed by a senior government official who was directly briefing the president on matters of national security.

Furthermore, Attorney General Eric Holder was informed of this FBI investigation in late summer. The FBI is part of the Justice Department, not the other way around. No such FBI protocol that may apply to FBI agents or to the head of the FBI would apply to the attorney general or limit his ability to brief the president.

It is true that former Attorney General Michael Mukasey issued guidance [3] to the Justice Department on December 19, 2007, limiting DOJ contacts with the White House regarding ongoing criminal or civil investigations. But that guidance provided that the attorney general or the deputy attorney general could communicate with the White House counsel or his deputy “where it is important for the performance of the president’s duties and where appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.” Further, national security investigations were not subject to the limitations, so long as the attorney general or his two senior aides were notified about the communications with the White House by other DOJ personnel.

Obviously, the president relies on the CIA director for security assessments and briefings on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. Can the attorney general and the White House seriously argue that the fact that Petraeus had an extramarital affair that made him subject to blackmail, and that he might have disclosed classified information to his paramour, was not important for the president to know when carrying out his duties to protect the country from national security threats as commander-in-chief?

One of the reasons for the FBI protocols and the DOJ guidance is preventing interference with criminal investigations of third parties who may have political connections with the White House or Congress. That rationale does not apply to the investigation of a high-level government official who is a direct subordinate of the president. Both the president and the National Security Council should have been immediately informed about this investigation when the security issues arose.

In fact, a long-time acquaintance who worked in the Office of the Attorney General in a prior administration told me it was inconceivable that an attorney general would not inform the White House counsel or the president that the president’s CIA director was being investigated.

It certainly was convenient for the president’s reelection campaign that information about this probe, on top of the Benghazi fiasco, did not come out as an October surprise just before the election given that members of his administration have known about it for months. But those who worry about our national security and the many threats we face around the world, including an ongoing war with terrorists who want to destroy us, should be very concerned about an attorney general and an FBI director who did not immediately inform the president that his chief intelligence officer was under investigation. Or about a president who shows no concern about the failure of his two chief law enforcement subordinates to inform him of this problem.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/more-hot-air-from-white-house-and-eric-holder/

URLs in this post:

[1] news reports: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/13/white-house-insists-it-was-unaware-petraeus-scandal-until-day-after-election

[2] classified information: http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/11/broadwell-spoke-of-access-to-classified-info-149263.html

[3] guidance: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/19/AR2007121902303.html

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisons of the Copyright Act from the New York Times Sunday Review, is a nasty attack on Gen Petraeus' character and ability but one in which, I must admit, I find a fair bit with which to agree:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/opinion/sunday/a-phony-hero-for-a-phony-war.html?_r=0

A Phony Hero for a Phony War

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

Published: November 16, 2012

FASTIDIOUSNESS is never a good sign in a general officer. Though strutting military peacocks go back to Alexander’s time, our first was MacArthur, who seemed at times to care more about how much gold braid decorated the brim of his cap than he did about how many bodies he left on beachheads across the Pacific. Next came Westmoreland, with his starched fatigues in Vietnam. In our time, Gen. David H. Petraeus has set the bar high. Never has so much beribboned finery decorated a general’s uniform since Al Haig passed through the sally ports of West Point on his way to the White House.

Illustration by Sean McCabe; Photograph by David J. Phillip/Associated Press
Source: New York Times

“What’s wrong with a general looking good?” you may wonder. I would propose that every moment a general spends on his uniform jacket is a moment he’s not doing his job, which is supposed to be leading soldiers in combat and winning wars — something we, and our generals, stopped doing about the time that MacArthur gold-braided his way around the stalemated Korean War.

And now comes “Dave” Petraeus, and the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. No matter how good he looked in his biographer-mistress’s book, it doesn’t make up for the fact that we failed to conquer the countries we invaded, and ended up occupying undefeated nations.

The genius of General Petraeus was to recognize early on that the war he had been sent to fight in Iraq wasn’t a real war at all. This is what the public and the news media — lamenting the fall of the brilliant hero undone by a tawdry affair — have failed to see. He wasn’t the military magician portrayed in the press; he was a self-constructed hologram, emitting an aura of preening heroism for the ever eager cameras.

I spent part of the fall of 2003 with General Petraeus and the 101st Airborne Division in and around Mosul, Iraq. One of the first questions I asked him was what his orders had been. Was he ordered to “take Mosul,” I asked. No answer. How about “Find Mosul and report back”? No answer. Finally I asked him if his orders were something along the lines of “Go to Mosul!” He gave me an almost imperceptible nod. It must have been the first time an American combat infantry division had been ordered into battle so casually.

General Petraeus is very, very clever, which is quite different from stating that he is the brilliant tactician he has been described as. He figured if he hadn’t actually been given the mission to “win” the “war” he found himself in, he could at least look good in the meantime. And the truth is he did a lot of good things, like conceiving of the idea of basically buying the loyalties of various factions in Iraq. But they weren’t the kinds of things that win wars. In fact, they were the kinds of things that prolong wars, which for the general had the useful side effect of putting him on ever grander stages so he could be seen doing ever grander things, culminating in his appointment last year as the director of the C.I.A.

The thing he learned to do better than anything else was present the image of The Man You Turn To When Things Get Tough. (Who can forget the Newsweek cover, “Can This Man Save Iraq?” with a photo of General Petraeus looking very Princeton-educated in his Westy-starched fatigues?) He was so good at it that he conned the news media into thinking he was the most remarkable general officer in the last 40 years, and, by playing hard to get, he conned the political establishment into thinking that he could morph into Ike Part Deux and might one day be persuaded to lead a moribund political party back to the White House.

THE problem was that he hadn’t led his own Army to win anything even approximating a victory in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s not just General Petraeus. The fact is that none of our generals have led us to a victory since men like Patton and my grandfather, Lucian King Truscott Jr., stormed the beaches of North Africa and southern France with blood in their eyes and military murder on their minds.

Those generals, in my humble opinion, were nearly psychotic in their drive to kill enemy soldiers and subjugate enemy nations. Thankfully, we will probably never have cause to go back to those blood-soaked days. But we still shouldn’t allow our military establishment to give us one generation after another of imitation generals who pretend to greatness on talk shows and photo spreads, jetting around the world in military-spec business jets.

The generals who won World War II were the kind of men who, as it was said at the time, chewed nails for breakfast, spit tacks at lunch and picked their teeth with their pistol barrels. General Petraeus probably flosses. He didn’t chew nails and spit tacks, but rather challenged privates to push-up contests and went out on five-mile reveille runs with biographers.

His greatest accomplishment was merely personal: he transformed himself from an intellectual nerd into a rock star military man. The problem was that he got so lost among his hangers-on and handlers and roadies and groupies that he finally had his head turned by a West Point babe in a sleeveless top.

If only our political leadership, not to mention the Iraqi and Afghan insurgencies, had known how quickly and hard he would fall over such a petty, ignominious affair. Think of how many tens of thousands of lives could have been saved by ending those conflicts much earlier and sending Dave and his merry band of Doonesbury generals to the showers.

Lucien K Truscott IV is a novelist and journalist who is writing his new book on the blog Dying of a Broken Heart.

I'm afraid my opinion of American generalship has declined over the years. Accepting, as I do, that George C Marshall was sui generis, I just don't see anyone like Nimitz or Bradley or even Ridgway. Maybe admirals and generals have evolved along with the politicians and bureaucrats who direct them.

My opinion of Canadian generalship is almost as bleak.

 

[Infanteer]

What a junk opinion piece.  Really, we are going to rely on this sort of writing as an indicator of today's military leadership?

The generals who won World War II were the kind of men who, as it was said at the time, chewed nails for breakfast, spit tacks at lunch and picked their teeth with their pistol barrels.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

So Patreaus had an affair - I'm sure if GMail had existed in 1945, we'd know for sure if Eisenhower was indeed screwing his driver.  That isn't really indicative as his skills as a General - in fact, IIRC, he deftly handled the 101st Air Assault Division during the Iraq War in 2003.

As critical as I was of the Pop-Centric COIN fad that grew around Patreaus, Iraq and Afghanistan aren't affairs to lay solely at the feet of bad generalship.  It was bad policy that led armies into no win situations and one simply has to play "spin the bottle" with G.W. Bush's cabinet to find culpability in the situations that unfolded over the 2000s.  Comparing Patreaus command ability in the political gong-show that was policy in Iraq and Afghanistan to Truscott and Patton's "Here's your Army, now go to Berlin" scenario is simply silly.

Rather than pumping his grand-dad's tires, Truscott could have said what he or his ancestor would have done in Patreaus' place - spit nails?  There is nothing in the author's polemic to indicate whether a Patton or a Truscott would have succeeded in a Vietnam or an Afghanistan.

 

[Old Sweat]

Well said, Infanteer.

We already know how Patton reacted to troops suffering from PTSD.

 

[GAP]

  There is nothing in the author's polemic to indicate whether a Patton or a Truscott would have succeeded in a Vietnam or an Afghanistan.

In Viet Nam he would just another garlanded pass through glamour chicken.....we had lots....

 

[FJAG]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisons of the Copyright Act from the New York Times Sunday Review, is a nasty attack on Gen Petraeus' character and ability but one in which, I must admit, I find a fair bit with which to agree:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/opinion/sunday/a-phony-hero-for-a-phony-war.html?_r=0

I'm afraid my opinion of American generalship has declined over the years. Accepting, as I do, that George C Marshall was sui generis, I just don't see anyone like Nimitz or Bradley or even Ridgway. Maybe admirals and generals have evolved along with the politicians and bureaucrats who direct them.

My opinion of Canadian generalship is almost as bleak.

I tend to disagree. There are good and bad officers everywhere and if you dig deep enough you'll always find some warts. Some of the older ones from history have just survived unscathed because they were not always subject to the same scathing criticism by the press and bloggers pretending to be journalists.

The author of this piece - Lucien K Truscott IV - major claim to fame is being born into a military family. He himself has a military career of West Point and one year or so as a 2nd lieutenant in 1970 before resigning from the army over an argument about an article he wanted to publish. I don't consider this article as anything more than a fluff opinion piece. It has neither depth nor substance.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending or promoting Patreus one way or the other. I just don't think that this article is the one to hang one's hat on. I expect the truth lies somewhere between this article and Broadwell's book - but that leaves quite some room doesn't it?

 

[cupper]

He needs to stick with what he knows best, writing fiction. :nod:

 

[a_majoor]

Just a reminder the story is far broader and deeper than just the moral failings of one man. Many questions need to be answered from multiple sources, most especially the State Department:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324556304578117182552208160.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Hillary and Libya
The policy failure goes beyond the murder of her deputies in Benghazi.
Article
Comments (266)

David Petraeus told Congress Friday in closed hearings that the CIA believed from the start that the September 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi were by terrorists. That leaves one VIP who's still missing from Congressional scrutiny: Hillary Clinton.

GOP Congressman Peter King said Mr. Petraeus's testimony differed from what the former CIA director told Congress immediately after the attacks. Mr. King also said Mr. Petraeus said that the CIA's original talking points on the attacks were edited. The altered version became the basis for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's misleading and now infamous comments blaming the attacks on a YouTube video. Both that discrepancy and the issue of the altered talking points need further digging, especially if Ms. Rice is nominated to be the next Secretary of State.

But Mr. Petraeus wasn't responsible for lax consulate security or the U.S. policy that led to the Libya debacle. That's Mrs. Clinton's bailiwick. Last month in interviews from deepest Peru, the Secretary of State said "I take responsibility" for Benghazi.

Except she hasn't. She was conveniently out of the country for this week's House Foreign Affairs hearing, and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry refuses to hold any hearings on Benghazi. His loyalty may get him a cabinet job, while Carl Levin's Armed Services Committee also pretends nothing much happened in Libya.

The targets of the attacks and its first victims were diplomats. Chris Stevens died of smoke inhalation in the blaze, becoming the first American ambassador killed in the line of duty in over 30 years. A junior colleague also died. These men were Mrs. Clinton's "responsibility." Several hours after the assault on the consulate, members of the jihadist militia Ansar al-Shariah turned on the CIA compound about a mile away, killing two of Mr. Petraeus's men.

In Congressional hearings last month, career State officials admitted that threat warnings from Benghazi were overlooked and requests for better security turned down. They said Foggy Bottom misjudged the ability of a weak Libyan state to protect them. It's not clear how high up the chain these concerns went, but over to you, Mrs. Clinton.

For over a week after the attacks, the Administration blamed the YouTube video. Mrs. Clinton didn't push this misleading narrative in public as enthusiastically as Ms. Rice. Still, she bought into it. The father of Tyrone Woods, a CIA contractor who was killed in Benghazi, told media outlets last month that Mrs. Clinton tried to comfort him by promising that the U.S.-based maker of the video would be "prosecuted and arrested"—though terrorists killed his son.

Beyond the Benghazi attacks is the larger issue of the Administration's Libya policy, a failure that Mrs. Clinton should also answer for. At the start of the Libya uprising, Washington hid behind the U.N. Security Council to resist calls for intervention. Mrs. Clinton's department then made the mistake of agreeing to a U.N. arms embargo on both the Gadhafi regime and the rebels. This blunder forced the rebels to look elsewhere for weapons and cash, particularly Gulf states like Qatar that favored Islamist militias.

As Gadhafi's forces were about to overrun Benghazi in March, the Arab League, Britain and France called for military intervention. Only after the Security Council gave the green light—when Russia abstained—did NATO launch air strikes. American cruise missiles and bombers led the way, but on April 7 President Obama pulled the U.S. out of a leadership combat role.

The U.S. also waited until July to recognize the Benghazi rebel opposition as "the legitimate governing authority," after Luxembourg and 25 other countries had already done so. The war lasted until October, much longer than necessary.

American disengagement continued after Gadhafi fell. Though rich in oil, Libya's well-intentioned new leaders needed advice and encouragement to build a functioning state. The most pressing need was to rein in the anti-Gadhafi militias and stand up a national army. But the U.S. was reluctant to follow up with aid or know-how. (See our December 24, 2011 editorial, "MIA on the Shores of Tripoli.") Qatar and the United Arab Emirates stepped in with money and weapons, again favoring Islamist groups.

The Libyan people nonetheless voted in elections this summer for secular, pro-Western leaders. Yet the government has limited powers and lacks a proper army. The militias have stepped into the vacuum, while al Qaeda-style training camps proliferate in the hills around Benghazi.

***
This abdication is the backdrop to what happened on September 11. The large CIA outpost in Benghazi was supposed to monitor jihadists and work with State to round up thousands of mobile surface-to-air missiles in Libya. Yet it turns out that it's hard to fight terrorists on the ground with drones from remote bases. Without a functioning government or broader U.S. aid, a small Islamist militia was able to target foreign diplomats and eventually lay siege to the U.S. compound. The CIA closed its entire Benghazi shop that very morning—an abject retreat.

For weeks, the Administration has tried to shift blame for Benghazi to the "intelligence community." Mr. Petraeus's fall makes him an easy scapegoat, even as Mrs. Clinton takes a valedictory lap at State and sets her sights on a 2016 Presidential run.

But U.S. Libya policy has been her handiwork, and with the exception of the fall of Gadhafi it is a notable failure. Mrs. Clinton is also a main architect of U.S. policy in Syria, which continues to descend into disorder that may engulf the region. She shouldn't get a free pass from Congress.