(
)
No one hands out medals to women like Holly Petraeus. But someone should.
Instead, like a swift kick in Holly’s teeth, military groupie Jill Kelley received an actual medal last year from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who liked her lavish dinners.
Today, as the Petraeus family gathers ’round the Thanksgiving table for the longest, most tense meal in the history of marriage (hide the knives), retired Gen. David Betray-us has a unique opportunity to realize how badly he mucked up. And I’m not talking about throwing away his career as CIA director in exchange for a few rolls in the hay with his unglued biographer, Paula Broadwell.
He’s lost Holly. Emotionally, at least. She’ll never trust him again.
At 59, Holly Petraeus is the rock star of wives, a pre-feminist who made sacrifices today’s narcissistic gals wouldn’t consider for her husband of 38 years. She bore two children while giving up any semblance of a normal family life as her husband was constantly deployed overseas. She blew off a career. She donated her skills, her loyalty and her youth to a man unfit to shine her belt buckle.
And she probably won’t leave him.
Today, I honor Holly Petraeus, a far better wife than I. For retired Gen. Petraeus did the worst thing imaginable to his spouse.
He turned her into an object not of honor, but of pity.
Petraeus, 60, is not the first and won’t be the last powerful man to cheat on a woman over his head. But other wives who were famously cuckolded seem to have achieved some form of payback.
Silda Spitzer, wife of Love Gov Eliot Spitzer, got piles of money in exchange for forgiving her husband’s pathetic penchant for prostitutes. Elin Nordegren, displaced wife of Tiger Woods, not only got rich, she gave her pathologically horny hub a well-deserved 9-iron to the head.
And Hillary Rodham Clinton won the ultimate consolation prize in her horror marriage to Bill, becoming one of the most powerful women in government, secretary of State. As she wrote in her memoir, she also got to slap Bill around.
But what has Holly Petraeus got?
Little is known of Hollister “Holly’’ Knowlton Petraeus, and she likes it that way. She’s the daughter of the late Gen. William Knowlton who was superintendent of West Point when her husband was a cadet, and she’s a summa cum laude graduate of Dickinson College. She could have achieved anything.
Instead she went on a blind date with Petraeus nearly four decades ago, and that’s all she wrote.
He had the sense (guilt?) to honor Holly in a speech last year.
“The best decision I ever made was to reply, ‘Sure, happy to do it’ when asked if I would escort a visiting co-ed to a weekend football game.’’
Holly helps military couples with, ironically, their marriages as assistant director of service member affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She had no idea.
Unlike Petraeus’ paramour, the married Broadwell, Holly never sought to gain from her union. Broadwell, who boasted of her access to high places, had classified military documents on her computer as the scandal unfolded. (Petraeus denies giving them her.)
When Broadwell feared she was being displaced by military bimbo Jill Kelley, Broadwell went cuckoo, allegedly sending her rival threatening e-mails. (Petraeus denies romancing Kelley.)
But an endless parade of media chowderheads have gone on the offensive, suggesting that Petraeus, no oil painting himself, can be forgiven for cheating because he had a grown-up wife.
Rubbish! Petraeus could have been wed to a mute supermodel. He would have strayed.
Powerful men “pick brains to marry, like Hillary Clinton,’’ said Manhattan psychotherapist Bonnie Eaker Weil, author of “Adultery: The Forgivable Sin.’’
“The brain does not feed an ego like a bimbo does.’’ Oddly, Dr. Weil thinks this marriage can be saved.
“I’m not excusing it, but I believe adultery is a disease like alcoholism. It’s curable and treatable.’’
I’d advise Holly Petraeus to run as fast as she can. But marriage is her life.
I hope Petraeus knows he’s a lucky man.
Someone rein in this hypocrite
Alec Baldwin has found someone close to his own size to bully.
The “30 Rock’’ star, fond of bashing puny photographers and me on Twitter, was seen last week in Central Park carted around by a bored-looking carriage horse while taping a scene. I hate to call a guy a hypocrite. But Alec has long campaigned to send New York’s carriage-horse industry to the glue factory.
Alec had a grand time in the park with Tyson, a gelding owned by Horse and Carriage Association president Steve Malone. But when animal-rights nuts at PETA got wind of the actor’s treachery, Alec said he’ll describe hansom cabs as “rolling torture wagons for nature’s most dignified creatures’’ in a TV episode airing Dec. 6.
Perhaps Alec has a new appreciation for the horses he tried to have laid off.
Simpson’s ‘real’ scapegoat
Ever since an LA jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty of killing ex-wife Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, someone has tried to make a buck revealing the identity of the “real’’ killer. Now it’s Glen Rogers, a death-row inmate who once boasted he killed 70 people, according to a new ID network TV documentary, “My Brother the Serial Killer.’’ The proof?
Rogers worked construction in LA at the time of the 1994 murders. Simpson supposedly hired him to break into Nicole’s house to steal earrings. And Rogers’ brother thinks he’s guilty.
All this has nothing to do with the trail of blood belonging to O.J. and his victims, which led from the murder scene to O.J.’s bedroom. The injustice of his acquittal is still raw.
He did it. Move on.
Infantile speculationIs a little Windsor in the oven? According to an ex-flatmate of Kate Middleton, she and hubby Prince William will soon announce joyous news. The queen is to be a great-granny! If true, it’s as if these glamazons are the first couple, ever, to reproduce. Mazel tov!
The terror of their ways
A bomb exploded on an Israeli bus in Tel Aviv yesterday, wounding 27 people. Hamas cheered, even as the terror group failed to take responsibility. Even so, a truce with Hamas savages is to take effect today.
Violence that has taken five Israeli lives and killed 140 Palestinians broke out after Hamas hit Israel with rockets, and Israel defended itself — even if the loathsome New York Times and CNN disagree. Fortunately, the Obama administration has Israel’s back.
Israel will not be wiped from the map. Not while good people know right from wrong.