The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Obama Administration’s Benghazi Gambit: Protect Rice, Scapegoat CIA

Posted on | November 15, 2012 | 12 Comments

A suspiciously timely scoop:

CBS News has obtained the CIA talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Sept. 15 regarding the fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, four days earlier. CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan says the talking points, which were also given to members of the House intelligence committee, make no reference to terrorism being a likely factor in the assault, which left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.
Rice . . . has been attacked by Republican lawmakers for saying . . . on Sept. 16 that all indications were the attack “began spontaneously” – suggesting it likely sprang from a protest against an anti-Muslim video found on the Internet. Protests of that nature had been seen in other Muslim nations in the days and weeks before the Benghazi attack.
“Available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault… There are indications that extremists participated,” read the CIA’s talking points.

Ed Morrissey observes:

It seems interesting this CBS scoop comes shortly before both the current and former directors of the CIA will testify as to what they know about the terrorist attack on our consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi. Why, it’s almost as if someone at the White House or State Department wanted to follow up on Barack Obama’s defense of Susan Rice during yesterday’s press conference and pre-empt any potential fallout from whatever Mike Morell and David Petraeus have to say today and tomorrow.

Extreme naïveté is necessary to believe anything the Obama administration says and extreme cynicism is necessary to pretend that the Obama administration is telling the truth. So, are the pro-Obama media naive fools or cynical hacks? We report. You decide.

Meanwhile, Jill Kelley has lost her “honorary consul general” privileges, whatever the heck that means.

 

Category: Barack Obama, Libya, Scandal

Paranoid Theory: ‘Karl Rove Was Out Raising Money to Keep Santorum Alive’

Posted on | November 15, 2012 | 53 Comments

James Yanke at Reaganite Republican links to an article at Business Insider in which Grace Wyler gives credence to a paranoid theory offered by evangelical leader David Lane:

Karl stepped on Rick Perry and then Newt Gingrich every chance he got — albeit with deceit and sophistication — and elevated Mitt Romney at strategic, crucial points along their way to the Republican nomination — Rove’s candidate.
As an example of how sophisticated Rove is…Karl Rove was out raising money to keep Santorum alive until they could kill Newt — Santorum basically ran for Governor of Iowa in 2011, visiting all 99 counties; Santorum, out of Iowa, had no organization, no money and no chance in 2012 to be the Republican nominee; he was only a stalking horse for Mitt Romney — Rove kept Santorum alive until he could kill Rick Perry first, and then Newt Gingrich.
It’s instructive to note that Santorum placed 3rd in the South Carolina Presidential Primary the third week of January, and placed 3rd again the next week in Florida — yet Rove [by encouraging GOP donors to donate Santorum] was able to parlay two third place finishes into a $1M shot of money to keep Santorum alive…this is political gamesmanship on a whole other level, plus access to unlimited money.

This is insane in so many ways I don’t even know where to begin. It is obviously false to claim that Karl Rove raised a dime for Rick Santorum’s campaign. Nearly all of Santorum’s post-Iowa fundraising surge was in the form of online contributions from small donors.

So why on earth would David Lane say such a thing? In February, after Santorum won the trifecta — Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri — his underdog campaign caught the attenton of Annette Simmons, wife of Texas billionaire Harold Clark Simmons. Mrs. Simmons is a devout Christian who doesn’t pay much attention to politics, but news reports about Santorum’s strong Christian values appealed to her. So she told her husband that she was thinking about making a donation to Santorum. The Wall Street Journal reported March 23:

Mr. Simmons wondered about the prospects of the former Pennsylvania senator. He called his personal political muse, Republican strategist Karl Rove.
“Is he worth investing into his super PAC?” Mr. Simmons asked. He rose from his leather recliner in the den and stood at a bay window overlooking swans gliding on a lake encircled by 17,000 tulips. “Does he have a chance?”
“Yes, I wouldn’t count him out,” Mr. Rove said. Mr. Simmons’s wife, Annette, who was keen on Mr. Santorum, promptly donated $1 million to his super PAC, cash badly needed for an ad blitz ahead of the Super Tuesday primaries.

Keep in mind what the situation was in February: Michelle Bachmann had quit after Iowa, Perry quit two days before the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary, and Gingrich had gotten stomped by Romney in both Florida and Nevada. Then came Feb. 8, when Santorum won all three contests, while Gingrich placed third in Colorado and fourth (behind Ron Paul) in Minnesota (Newt didn’t make the ballot in Missouri).

So if any well-informed person were asked, “Does Santorum have a chance?” the obvious answer would be, “Yes, I wouldn’t count him out.” Yet this is twisted by David Lane — who backed Gingrich from start to finish — into a conspiratorial plot. Furthermore, the idea that Perry and Gingrich lost because Rove “stepped on [them] every chance he got” is blatantly counterfactual:

  • Perry self-destructed in two debates in Florida (Tampa Sept. 12, Orlando Sept. 22), and was never a viable contender thereafter. Whatever prospects there might have been for resurrecting the Texas governor’s campaign ended at the Nov. 9 debate in Michigan, when Perry forgot how to count to three: “Oops.” By all normal logic, Perry should have quit after his fifth-place showing in the Iowa caucuses, but instead let himself be persuaded to continue on to South Carolina, only to end up quitting the Thursday before the Saturday primary and endorsing Gingrich.
  • Gingrich was buried in Iowa by a blitz of Romney attack ads, recovered to win South Carolina, then buried against in Florida. As I have extensively documented, Gingrich’s campaign suffered from an unsustainable “burn rate.” Gingrich’s campaign went into the red in late January due to an ill-fated decision to attempt to fight Romney in the expensive Florida TV market and never recovered its financial balance. Newt reportedly spent the days before the Nevada primary desperately “dialing for dollars” (and thereby missed a scheduled appearance with the state’s popular Gov. Brian Sandoval) because of the campaign’s money troubles.

So, on the basis of a single datum — the Harold Simmons call to Karl Rove in February — David Lane has ginned up a conspiracy theory that falsely portrays Rick Santorum as a Rove-controlled stalking horse for the Romney campaign. Paranoia is not an ideology.

UPDATE: It is necessary, in order to understand how absurdly misguided David Lane’s paranoid theory is, to look at the vote totals in the three GOP contests that took place on Feb. 8:

MISSOURI PRIMARY:
RICK SANTORUM …. 55%
MITT ROMNEY ……… 25%
RON PAUL …………….. 12%

COLORADO CAUCUSES:
RICK SANTORUM …. 40%
MITT ROMNEY ……… 35%
NEWT GINGRICH …. 13%
RON PAUL …………….. 12%

MINNESOTA CAUCUSES:
RICK SANTORUM …. 45%
RON PAUL …………….. 27%
MITT ROMNEY ……… 17%
NEWT GINGRICH …. 11%

No intelligent person could look at those results and say that, as of Feb. 9, Newt Gingrich was better positioned than Rick Santorum to defeat Romney, and yet this is what David Lane wants you to believe: That somehow, as a result of Karl Rove’s Machiavellian scheming, Newt got cheated out of the nomination because Annette Simmons gave a million dollars to Santorum’s Super PAC in February.

UPDATE: Linked by Becca J. Lower — thanks!

 


Category: Conspiracy Theories, Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum

2013: A Century Of Progress

Posted on | November 15, 2012 | 41 Comments

by Smitty

Conservatives should plan to mark the century since the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson on 17 January, 1913 with somber reminders of how bad the results of Progressivism have been. The 1910 census marked the end of the House of Representatives growing to represent the people. Thus, it is in danger of being the Lesser Senate. The 17th Amendment, of course, made Senators relatively more loyal to their parties than their States, and has turned the Senate into the Greater House. The Federal Reserve Act has flipped the cart and the horse, as DC borrows from the unborn to bribe the living. Meanwhile, the re-election rate for Congress is north of 95% since all this.

Thus, we have arrived, in the space of a century, at the door of a de facto aristocracy. 8 out of 10 of the richest counties voted for Obama, for all his re-election was substantially a class-warfare play. The rich Left team with the mob and crush the middle, and liberty. Does this explain the decline in voter turnout? While it may significantly be the case that conservatives bore some animus toward Romney for RomneyCare or even his faith, I submit that the larger problem may be the perception that our politics has become a farce dipped in debt:

 

To what extent has the GOP played right along with all this? Substantially, I’d say. While there has been willingness to co-op fiscal conservative energy since Ross Perot in 1992, on through the Tea Parties in 2010, a cynic might say that Tea Partiers were merely a tool to regain power for the GOP. I used to be an apologist for Boehner and the boys, saying that they needed to see some staying power from Tea Partiers, some maturity, some professional commitment to reform. If that’s the case, then the GOP elite really should consider throwing the Tea Parties a bone, because the cynical model seems to have more predictive power. Senator John McCain has been given leave to bleat about Susan Rice as Secretary of State. Why bother? Is the point to spend whatever rounds remain in the magazine on small issues, so that there is nothing left for the coming Commie Supreme Court?

There doesn’t seem to be any soft landing for this. No telling what the Ryan Budget might have done, if implemented. We appear to be on a collision course with the wall. So that bites. The only good news is that we don’t have to spend time planning what to do to reform. We already have our 1787 Constitution. The challenge is locating the will to wrest some power from DC and return it to the people.

  • Expand the House so that it again Represents the people.
  • Return the Senate to being driven by the 57 States.
  • Reform the Federal Reserve, so that we aren’t engaging in taxation without representation against the unborn.

Never in the history of humankind, I’ll venture, has a society been more stared in the face by the answer to its problems, yet not quite seemed to see it. Read and heed Schlichter:

In 1968, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army insurgents rose up against the American and South Vietnamese forces in the Tet Offensive. They were wiped out, yet seven years later they were in control of the country. There are lessons there for us conservatives.
Conservatives, as opposed to the Republicans who partially overlap them on the Venn diagram of American politics, need a strategy. Strategy differs from mere tactics – it is a synchronization of potential ways (think courses of action) and available means (think resources) to achieve a long term end. Tactics are the techniques supporting the strategy. The Tea Party/conservative revolt had effective tactics – rallies, town halls – but the movement’s decentralized nature, with groups springing up around the country, kept it from developing an effective, coherent strategy this year.

The whole thing is important. Should we treat the GOP as guilty until proven innocent in this case? I’m moving in that direction.

Progressivism Delenda Est

Update: linked at The Rio Norte Line

Category: Barack Obama

LIVE AT FIVE: 11.15.12

Posted on | November 15, 2012 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Obama Presses For Higher Taxes, But Adds Caveats

President Obama

Claims he’s open to new ideas

President, GOP Clash Over Benghazi, Rice
“Go after me,” he challenges McCain, Graham after block of Rice nomination threatened

FBI Agent Involved In Petraeus Scandal Has Been A Hero
Agent Humphries played key role in stopping terrorist attack on LAX



POLITICS
House GOP Re-Elects Boehner As Speaker, Chooses Rodgers As Conference Chairman

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)

Replaces Hensarling; Cantor and McCarthy also re-elected to leadership posts

Colorado Shooter Trial Delayed After Halfhearted Suicide Attempt

Pelosi Stays On As House Minority Leader

Jindal Slams Romney For “Gifts” Remark About Minorities, Young Voters

Obama Claims He’ll Prioritize Jobs, Economic Growth Ahead Of Climate Change

Nudists Sue To Stop SanFran Supervisors’ Vote On Public Nudity Ban

Reid Can’t Revive Cybersecurity Bill Loathed By Businesses, Privacy Activists

No Health Care Exchanges For Louisiana



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Back Over $86 As Mideast Tension Increases; NYMEX $86.34, Brent $109.61
Texas Instruments To Lay Off 1700
Dollar Weakens As Fed Minutes Suggest More Bond Buying
Yen Falls Most In Eight Months Against Dollar On Japanese Election
Hostess To Liquidate If Bakers’ Strike Continues
Corzine To Blame For MF Global Collapse
Dow Ends At Five-Month Low On Fiscal Cliff, Global Fears
Buffett’s Berkshire Sells Most Of J&J, GE Stakes
Starbucks Bags Teavana In $620 Million Deal
Microsoft Sued Over Surface Storage Capacity
HTC, Nokia WinPhone 8 Devices Hit The Market
Samsung Extends Lead In Smartphone Sales As Market Expands
Nexus 4 Sold Out On Google Play Ahead Of T-Mobile Launch
FCC May Ease Media Cross-Ownership Rules



SPORTS
R.A. Dickey Wins Cy Young Award

meme says it all 🙂

NL Cy Young winner led league in K’s with 230; Mets’ first 20-game winner since 1990
Also, some dude from the Rays won the AL Cy Young, but who cares?

Teammates Rip Tebow Anonymously; Jets’ Chemistry Still Sucks

Suns Fall To Bulls In OT As Boozer Scores 28

Rondo Injures Ankle, But Barbosa Rallies Celtics For Win

Grizzlies Maul Thunder, Win Sixth Straight

Tigers Add Big Bat, Sign Torii Hunter Away From Angels

Olympic Soccer Star Hope Solo Marries Jeremy Stevens Just Hours After His Court Appearance On Assault Charges

Walker’s Jumper Lifts Bobcats Over Timbermutts 89-87

Nationals Add Tony Tarasco To Davey Johnson’s Coaching Staff



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Lady Gaga Pledges $1 Million To Red Cross For Sandy Relief

Lady Gaga on tour in Brazil

“Thank you for helping me build my spirit. I will now help you rebuild yours.”


Tom Hardy Game For “Splinter Cell” Movie

Danielle Staub Returns To “Real Housewives Of New Jersey”

Jon Bon Jovi’s Daughter Stephanie Arrested After Suspected Heroin OD

Sandra Bullock, Camilla McConaughey Take Kids On A Play Date In New Orleans

Channing Tatum Named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive

Guy Fieri’s NYC Restaurant Bashed For “Inedible, Greasy, Ruinous” Food In Scathing NYT Review

Skarsgard Swings Into Front Of “Tarzan” Pack

Evan Rachel Wood To Star In “10 Things I Hate About Life”

Madonna Succumbs To “Gangnam Syle” In New York

Kirstie Alley, Gilles Marini Eliminated From DWTS All Stars



FOREIGNERS
IDF Strikes Gaza Rocket Arsenals, Sites; Iron Dome Takes Out One-Third Of Incoming Jihadi Missiles
Xi Jinping Takes PRC Helm
For Syria Opposition, Encouragement But No Endorsement
Woman Dies After Abortion Request Refused At Irish Hospital
Clinton Says Australia Doesn’t Have To Choose Between PRC, US
Japan Heads For Polls As Uncertainty Lingers
McAfee Flees From Belize Authorities
Putin Spokesman Denies Bad Back Rumors
Israel: Oslo Accords Finished If Palestinians Seek Upgraded UN Status



BLOGS & STUFF
Weasel Zippers: Romney Blames Defeat On Obama’s Gifts To Supporters
Sense Of Events: Investigate The FBI
American Power: Tampa Social Scene At Center Of Petraeus Scandal
Beltway Confidential: Actually, Susan Rice DID Say The Benghazi Attacks Were Spontaneous
Lonely Conservative: Bill Bennett Agrees – The Culture Is The Problem
Jawa Report: A Tired Old Big Government Czar Offers A Tired Old Solution
Ed Morrissey: Was Question About Pelosi’s Age Out Of Line?
Protein Wisdom: White House Secession Petitions Reach 675,000 Signatures, 50-State Participation
James Pethokoukis: European-Style Austerity – Obama’s New “Balanced” Debt Plan Is 73% Tax Hikes
Allahpundit: Israel, Hamas Now Locked In Twitter War, Also Actual War
Reihan Salam: The Political Economy Of Fiscal Trade-Offs
Andrew Kohut: Misreading Election 2012
Legal Insurrection: The Lessons Of 2012 May Not Be What Operation Demoralize Says

Category: Live at Five

Heckuva Job, Susan Rice!

Posted on | November 14, 2012 | 33 Comments

She went all over TV and repeated the administration’s lies about Libya, and how dare you criticize her!

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham both said today that they want to have Watergate-style hearings on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and said that if you nominate Susan Rice to be secretary of state, they will do everything in their power to block her nomination. As Senator Graham said, he simply doesn’t trust Ambassador Rice after what she said about Benghazi. I’d like your reaction to that. And would those threats deter you from making a nomination like that?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, first of all, I’m not going to comment at this point on various nominations that I’ll put forward to fill out my Cabinet for the second term. Those are things that are still being discussed.
But let me say specifically about Susan Rice, she has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill and professionalism and toughness and grace. As I’ve said before, she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her. If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous.
And you know, we’re after an election now. I think it is important for us to find out exactly what happened in Benghazi, and I’m happy to cooperate in any ways that Congress wants. We have provided every bit of information that we have, and we will continue to provide information. And we’ve got a full-blown investigation, and all that information will be disgorged to Congress.
And I don’t think there’s any debate in this country that when you have four Americans killed, that’s a problem. And we’ve got to get to the bottom of it, and there needs to be accountability. We’ve got to bring those who carried it out to justice. They won’t get any debate from me on that.
But when they go after the U.N. ambassador, apparently because they think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me. And should I choose — if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity — the State Department, then I will nominate her. That’s not a determination that I’ve made yet.

This is the moral lesson that Obama is teaching your children: Successful liars deserve to be praised and rewarded. Obama keeps saying that he’s going to “get to the bottom of it,” as if his own failures were not at “the bottom of it.” Ace of Spades comments:

Ed Henry points out that Obama admitted what had long been assumed (but not explicitly said), that Susan Rice was sent out to talk about Benghazi at the White House’s request.

Exactly: They pick this liberal ideologue — a State Department stooge who knows nothing about terrorism, nothing about intelligence, nothing about the military — hand her the dishonest talking points, and send her out to parrot their propaganda. When Rice’s explanation is proved false, then Obama starts saying he’s going to “get to the bottom of it,” as if someone else were responsible for crafting these lies which were calculated to benefit him politically.

Category: Barack Obama, Libya

Awesome: Hamas Leader Destroyed by Twitter Message, Israeli Air Strike

Posted on | November 14, 2012 | 14 Comments

But mainly, yeah, it was the air strike:

Hamas has said that Israeli air strike in Gaza which killed Ahmed Jabari, the head of its military wing, “has opened the gates of hell” . . .
Jabari, who is the most senior Hamas official to be killed since an Israeli invasion of Gaza four years ago, was killed in an air strike on a vehicle, in a dramatic resumption of Israel’s policy of assassinating Palestinian militant leaders.
Jabari has long topped Israel’s most-wanted list, the Associated Press reported, and was blamed for in a string of attacks, including the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006.
His son was also reportedly killed in the targeted air strike, according to Osama Hamdan, a Hamas representative in Lebanon . . .

The air strike was accompanied by this Twitter exchange between the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the Hamas “Al Qassam Brigades”:

And here’s the IDF video of the strike that took out Jibari:

Hat tip: Alex Yudelson on Twitter.

Category: Israel, Military, Terrorism

Is Krauthammer Right?

Posted on | November 14, 2012 | 10 Comments

The Great Brain says the Obama administration used David Petraeus’s sex scandal to compel him “to give the administration line” about Benghazi in the CIA director’s Sept. 12 testimony:

This is a very serious accusation, and one I am certainly not prepared to endorse until we have some clear evidence or testimony to support it. Yet I think Krauthammer’s commentary reinforces what I said in an earlier reply to commenter McGehee:

McGehee, you express a widespread attitude, that the Petraeus scandal is somehow a “distraction” from Benghazi, whereas I see it as an integral part of the Benghazi story, illustrating the fundamental unseriousness of national security policy in the Obama age. The CIA chief is canoodling with his biographer who is so flaky that she starts sending threatening e-mails to this Kelley woman? And this Kelley woman, who imagines herself deserving of diplomatic protection, is meanwhile carrying on an extensive correspondence with the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan? This does not speak of a strict attentiveness to duty on the part of Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Allen, at the very least. This evidence of unseriousness at the highest levels of our national security institutions might very well explain how things could go so badly wrong in Benghazi. So we can walk and chew gum at the same time: Follow the Petraeus scandal without forgetting that the reason it matters is because of what happened in Benghazi.

It is possible that the Petraeus scandal leads nowhere. On the other hand, it may prove to be a central element of this developing story about Benghazi. You don’t always know where a story is going to lead when you begin reporting it. Bill Gertz at the Free Beacon has an excellent summary of the Petraeus scandal to date, and CBS News has more background on Gen. Allen’s situation:

CBS News correspondent Bob Orr says Pentagon and FBI sources describe the communications as “potentially inappropriate” and “flirtatious,” and another source says they were likely more than just innocent exchanges — noting that the Pentagon’s Inspector General is involved for a reason.
Among the hundreds of emails exchanged between Allen and Kelly – Orr reports that investigators are focusing on one from several months ago. In it, Allen told Kelley he’d just received an anonymous email warning him to stay away from her.
Sources say that the anonymous email came from Broadwell, Petraeus’ mistress, who allegedly warned Gen. Allen that Kelley was “a seductress.”
Broadwell allegedly sent similar warnings to other military officers at the U.S. Central Command, located near Kelley’s Tampa home.

In order to protect her adulterous relationship with Petraeus, it seems, Paula Broadwell maligned Mrs. Kelley in a series of anonymous e-mails. Nevertheless, even if Jill Kelley is not a “seductress,” as Broadwell claimed, she does seem kind of flaky. Her “social liaison” title? Made up:

“There’s no such thing,” one officer told us. The made-up title appears to be a polite way of saying “rich Tampa socialite who likes to hang with four-star generals.”

Obama just gave a press conference and said, Blah, blah, blah.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal expands the story:

[A]t one point in the summer, after the investigation began pointing to larger potential national security issues, Ms. Kelley tried to get the FBI to drop the matter. The people said she made the request because she was worried about the personal information being provided to investigators.
Ms. Kelley, a 37-year-old volunteer who organized social events for military personnel, developed misgivings after friends in her Tampa social circle urged her to drop the matter, saying the probe would only cause bigger problems . . .
Gen. Allen has told associates he became entangled in the Petraeus adultery scandal a few months ago, when he received an email later traced to Ms. Broadwell, the official familiar with his thinking said.
Ms. Broadwell, whose extramarital affair with Mr. Petraeus had ended by then, believed that Ms. Kelley may have been a romantic rival, according to this official. Besides the emails sent directly to Ms. Kelley, she also sent a flurry of emails from a pseudonymous account to senior military officials, denigrating Ms. Kelley, the official said.
In the email received by Gen. Allen, Ms. Broadwell — writing under the pseudonym KelleyPatrol — described Ms. Kelley as a “seductress” and warned the general about being entangled in a relationship with her . . .
Gen. Allen was concerned by that email and forwarded it to Ms. Kelley . . .

Good Lord.

 

Category: Libya, Military, Scandal

Bad Memories of Bayshore Boulevard

Posted on | November 14, 2012 | 13 Comments

(Left to right) Natalie Khawam, Gen. David Petraeus, Dr. Scott Kelley,
Jill Kelley and Holly Petraeus at a party in Tampa.

It was August and a hurricane was hovering off the Florida coast that Monday afternoon in Tampa when I set out to find Jim Antle. The senior editor of The American Spectator had my credentials for the Republican National Convention and, at least in my understanding, had agreed to meet me downtown to give them to me.

But after a morning spent coping with traffic hassles — security had Tampa gridlocked — and finally walking the final blocks to reach the hotel that served as media headquarters for the convention, I’d been horrified to learn that Antle wasn’t downtown. He had picked up the credentials and gone back to the apartment where he was staying several miles south, near MacDill Air Force Base.

So now I had to walk more than a mile back to my car and drive to where Antle was, and this turned into a Kafkaesque nightmare. The direct route via Highway 618 to Highway 573 had been shut down by police, and so I was forced to navigate by surface streets without a GPS.

At one point, I found myself lost on Davis Island and had to stop into a 7-Eleven to check a map: Bayshore Boulevard was the route I needed, looping around the side of Hillsborough Bay, and then across Gandy Boulevard to the destination. When I finally neared the place, however, the street numbering was all wrong — evidently there are two roads with the same name, divided by a park — and by the time I finally reached Antle’s apartment, I was in a manic rage. It was past 2 o’clock in the afternoon by then, and I still hadn’t even gotten inside the convention, so after a screaming fit, I grabbed the credentials and rushed back to the car, racing to the Civic Center.

That nightmarish August afternoon in Tampa came to mind unexpectedly last night when, checking for the latest news on the Petraeus scandal, I scanned an article and saw a familiar address that figures prominently in my column today at The American Spectator:

Tampa’s Bayshore Boulevard is in the news today because it is the home of Jill Kelley, who played a crucial role in the scandal that brought down CIA Director David Petraeus.
Mrs. Kelley’s complaint to the FBI about threatening e-mails she received in May led to an investigation that exposed an affair between Petraeus, the retired four-star general who had been top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, and his biographer, Paula Broadwell. In recent days, a Tampa TV station reported, Mrs. Kelley has repeatedly called police seeking protection, at one point invoking her status as “honorary consul general.” She has been described as an unofficial “social liaison” at nearby MacDill Air Force Base, and now the media are encamped in front of the home that Mrs. Kelley shares with her surgeon husband, Dr. Scott Kelley, and their three children.
So far as we know, the Kelleys have done nothing wrong and were innocently drawn into this scandal because of the mistaken jealousy of Broadwell, a married mother of two who admittedly carried on an adulterous affair with Petraeus, who is likewise married. However, the FBI is now reportedly examining thousands of “potentially inappropriate” e-mails between Mrs. Kelley and Marine Gen. John Allen, who currently commands all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Even without any hanky-panky on Allen’s part — both he and Mrs. Kelley’s family strongly deny any such insinuation — there are still many intriguing questions swirling around this story. So the camera crews are likely to remain staked out on Bayshore Boulevard, while reporters, editors, and producers explore these questions, including the big one: How does this relate to the apparent failures in Libya that led to the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens two months ago? . . .

Read the whole thing. The fact that I actually drove past Mrs. Kelley’s house less than three months ago is just a weird coincidence, I’m sure. Meanwhile, Petraeus will testify to Congress tomorrow.

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Category: Fear. Loathing., Libya, Military, Scandal, Sex
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