Meet General David Petraeus:
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"Hi, I'm David. I like deep sea diving, going to the movies, cheating on my wife, and adding side pieces to my team." |
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"Hi, I'm Paula. I like writing, taking long walks on the beach, cheating on my husband, and overplaying my position as somebody else's side piece." |
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"Hi, I'm Jill. Not sure why I'm here, exactly. By the way, I have a lot of friends in the FBI and they do not care about your civil liberties AT ALL so mess with me if you dare." |
David Petraeus is married to Holly Knowlton, daughter of Army General William A Knowlton who directed West Point Academy; David and Holly have a son, Stephen, and a daughter, Anne. Paula Broadwell is married to a radiologist named Scott; they have 2 sons and live in a nice house in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jill Kelley is also married. Jill's husband is a doctor named Scott and together they have 3 daughters and reside in Tampa Bay, Florida. [EDITOR'S NOTE: I highlight the families to note that by engaging in this risky activity, these 3 individuals have not only affected their own lives but also the lives of their respective spouses and a total of 7 children.]
SO WHAT HAPPENED?
In a nutshell, General Petraeus and Paula Broadwell decide to become side pieces to each other while Paula was writing the General's biography. OK. To each their own. So be it. These are not the first two people in the history of the planet to have an affair. Normally, the story would end here, but due to a serious violation of the Side Piece Manual, now the whole world is talking about this mess. What was the violation, you ask? Apparently, the General, Paula and Jill all attended the same dinner event. At this dinner, Jill was allegedly seated next to and, according to Paula, playing footsie with the General (Jill denies that this ever happened).
If Paula had consulted her Side Piece Manual, she would have clearly seen on page 1 that the rules of being a side piece strictly prohibit any possessive behavior towards the General. This is especially true when the side piece in question (Paula) is already married with her own husband and 2 kids back home. She has absolutely ZERO standing to regulate the additional extra-marital affairs of a man that she, herself, is in an extra-marital affair with. These are the rules.
But Paula didn't read that chapter.
Paula begins to send harassing e-mails to Jill from an anonymous e-mail account. Little does Paula know, however, Jill has friends in high places. Jill then drops a dime to the FBI and the FBI opens up an investigation on the anonymous e-mails. They quickly trace these e-mails (sent via gmail) back to Paula Broadwell. However, the FBI doesn't stop there. They keep digging through Paula's personal e-mail and come across a series of e-mails between Paula and the General. But the FBI doesn't stop there (4th Amendment? What 4th Amendment?). They then hack into the General's personal e-mail account to confirm whether the General may have sent e-mails to Paula which breach national security.
This invariably led to a media frenzy as reporters tried to uncover how far the affair went, what privacy rights were violated by the FBI, whether the FBI violated investigative protocols, who among the justice department knew what and when, etc. Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe summarized these concerns this morning:
And to think that all of this could have been avoided if Paula Broadwell, a self-identified side piece, simply would have fought the urge to Overplay Her Position!