With David Petraeus’s resignation, it’s time to rethink why personal stupidity that doesn’t affect someone’s job should automatically result in resignation.
In matters romantic, we can all be stupid. Once the FBI saw that it had uncovered an extramarital affair, not an affair of state, the agency should have reined in that rogue topless agent and called it a day. But it didn’t, and when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper learned of Petraeus’ behavior, he told him he would have to resign — and eventually the president accepted.
There was no crime or breach of national security. The rules regarding personal behavior at the CIA are more lenient than those in the military. The antiquated fear that someone with a sexual secret can be blackmailed is operative only if Clapper and others make it so. If having an affair isn’t enough to get someone fired, then it probably isn’t enough to be used as blackmail.
Yes, government officials are stewards of the public trust in a way that private executives are not. Still, it’s not clear that the Puritan streak that persists in US public life is serving the public interest. Divorce rates in the military are higher than they’ve been in more than a decade. Are we willing to fire all these people if we find out about their infidelities?
Imagine the second term of President Bill Clinton had his terrible affair not consumed Congress and the rest of us. A few months ago, Petraeus watched as his friend Brett McGurk lost his chance to become ambassador to Iraq over an affair with a reporter. It didn’t matter that everyone — from former President George W. Bush to the current president — thought McGurk would be a great ambassador. He’d been exposed by e-mails to his then-girlfriend, now wife. Nothing criminal was found, yet they both lost their careers over it.
We’re not Saudi Arabia. We don’t stone adulterers. The punishment suffered privately is more than enough.