Politics

General Petraeus Is Nowhere To Be Found In Coverage Of The Petraeus Affair

Who could have guessed a few weeks ago that former Director of the CIA David Petraeus would be at the center of such a salacious scandal? But wait — have you noticed how Petraeus has been curiously shunted to the side in the media coverage of his affair? It’s not his mug covering the tabloids or his emails being reprinted as bold headlines. It’s almost like the Petraeus affair has become the Clinton Allegations 2.0: while Petraeus has gone into hibernation, the two women he cheated on his wife with have became the new preoccupation of empty-calorie news outlets everywhere.

Their girl fights and nasty tactics have earned them cover story after cover story, even as Paula Broadwell has claimed to be “devastated” with guilt and shame over the affair on the current issue of PEOPLE, and the New York dailies just can’t seem to get enough of the scandal. Media outlets across the country have been force feeding their readers with round after round of Petraeus news dumps featuring new sideline characters and juicy email excerpts. When Clinton got busted big time in 1998 with Monica Lewinsky (who was the subject of most headlines thereafter), other women from his past resurfaced with their own tales of sexual misconduct by the disgraced president. The frenzy culminated in covers like PEOPLE‘s 1998 Brady Bunch-esque collage of all the women who experienced ol’ Bill copping a feel. The media wasn’t just having a field day but a field year.

It may be that Petraeus simply isn’t that interesting to cover. While he may have been the top dog in the CIA, he’s already punished himself by resigning immediately from the organization. His story is mostly resolved, and too depressing for a quick read on the way to work. The women that are involved have been no more disgraceful than Petraeus for their participation in the affair, but because they have yet to be sufficiently “punished” or lose their jobs, their stories are still catnip to the public. Broadwell and Jill Kelley are far more visible in the scandal than Petraeus, who has yet to make an appearance on a magazine featuring a headline about how “devastated” he is. It seems like in the race to cover the dirtiest bits of the coverup, one of the key players is being unfairly exempt from the fray.

TAGS: paula broadwell | petraeus affair

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