The Other McCain

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

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.

PREVIOUSLY:

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

LIVE AT FIVE: 11.14.12

Posted on | November 14, 2012 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
President Obama Feeling The Heat

Looking grim

Collateral damage spreads from l’affaire Petraeus as angry investigators want answers
Paula Broadwell goes to ground in DC

Will Obama And The GOP Cut A Budget Deal?
Three fiscal cliff scenarios

Kremlin Says Obama, Putin Ready To Advance Relations
Forward!



POLITICS
SecDef Sacks Another General

General William “Kip” Wells

Former AFRICOM CG busted back to three stars for lavish travel, unathorized expenses

Top Candidates To Replace Clinton At State Face Hurdles

Red Cross Pushes Back On Sandy Response


Charter School Enrollment On The Rise

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Leaves Mayo, Remains In Minnesota

Pelosi To Announce Plans Today: Retire, Step Down As Minority Leader, Or What?

Petition Urges Macy’s To Dump Trump Apparel For Crimethink

Jury Rules Against Chicago Police In “Code Of Silence” Beating Trial



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Prices Stagnant As IEA Predicts Slow Growth, Sluggish Economy; NYMEX $85.41, Brent $108.10
Asian Stocks Lack Impetus As Fiscal Cliff Clouds Outlook
Wall Street Declines On Concerns Over US, Euro Economies
Small Businesses Doubtful About The Economy
US risk Council Proposes New Money Market Rules
Raley’s, Union Reach Deal (Video)
Vodafone Misses Estimates, Takes $9.4 Billion Writedown
Microsoft Surface Update Tweaks Performance
Google Warns About Increased Government Surveillance
Nokia Buys 3D Mapping Company, Announces New Service “Here”
HTC: We’re Not Backing Away From Android
20 Minutes Into The Future: Petraeus The (Unlikely) SecDef In “Call Of Duty: Black Ops II”



SPORTS
Fish Sale: Marlins Trade Pretty Much Everybody To Toronto For Some Chew, Magic Beans, Prospects

Jose Reyes

Blockbuster deal shifts $170 million in contracts to Blue Jays, alienates few remaining Marlins fans

Danny Green Bombs Over Kobe As Spurs Beat Lakers 84-82

Knicks Hold Off Late Challenge From Magic, Remain Undefeated

Roethlisberger Out Indefinitely

Former Seahawk Arrested In Case Involving Solo, Released

Bears Fans Tie The Knot At Soldier Field Tailgate

Royce White Goes Off On Rockets For Not Helping With His Anxiety Disorder

Williams, Johnson Lead Nyets Over Cavaliers 114-101

Johnson, Melvin Chosen Managers Of The Year; Pair Led Baseball Revival In DC, Oakland



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Rihanna: Obsession Of The Year

Robyn Rihanna Fenty

“Men straight lost their minds over this woman.”

Janeane Garofalo’s Marriage No Joke

Accuser Recants Allegations Against Voice Of Elmo

Whedon’s “S.H.I.E.L.D.” Pilot Adds Two Agents

Nicole Kidman: Cruise Divorce “A Shock To My System”

Bieber’s Dilemma: Go Back To Selena, Or Bang Supermodels?

Brad & Angelina’s Kids Get Their Letters To Santa In Early

Leryn Franco Hits The Beach

Brandon T. Jackson To Star In “Beverly Hills Cop” Reboot

Darth Vader To Be Resurrected

Keira Knightley Poses Topless, Addresses Anorexia Rumors



FOREIGNERS
Chicom Party Congress Wraps Up Ahead Of Leadership Unveiling
France Officially Recognizes Syrian Rebels, Will Consider Providing Arms
Strikes Against Austerity Hit Four EU Countries
After Four Decades, Suu Kyi Comes To India
Prince Charles Celebrates 64th Birthday With Tour Of Middle Earth
Hollande Defends Record As Economy Struggles
Protests Erupt In Jordan After Fuel Subsidy Cut



BLOGS & STUFF
Mark Steyn: Forget Benghazi, What About Our Diplomats In Tampa?
Belmont Club: The Snowflake’s Core
Andrew Malcolm: A Handy Guide To Who’s Doing Who In The Obama Sex Scandals
Jawa Report: Petraeus Bio With Mistake Cover
Lonely Conservative: Libs Want to Deport Anyone Calling For Secession
Weasel Zippers: Governor O’Malley (D-MD) Says GOP Must Get Rid Of “Tea Party Stench”
Allahpundit: Did Petraeus Lie To Congress In His Benghazi Briefing?
NewsBusters: Krauthammer Says Administration Held Affairs Over Petraeus’ Head
Americans For Tax Reform: ATR Opposes Carbon Tax
Protein Wisdom: Defining Conservatism Up

Category: Live at Five

Apropos Nothing

Posted on | November 13, 2012 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

From a random exchange with a guy Down Undah:

Aussie, eh?
I was through Melbourne in 1998, I guess it was, on the way home from the Persian Gulf. A young girl had committed an act of Hooverism on the President, so we had to shoot Tomahawk missiles into Afghanistan. Subsequently, the world went mad.

Category: humor

If You Were Saying to Yourself, ‘This Petraeus Scandal Isn’t Crazy Enough …’

Posted on | November 13, 2012 | 34 Comments

You’re going to love this news: Jill Kelley — whose report of threatening e-mails led to revelations of Gen. David Petraeus’s affair with Paula Broadwell — has a “psychologically unstable” twin sister. And when the sister needed a reference in her child custody case, Petraeus provided it:

The four-star general’s letter to the court — written in the past two months — supported a motion to overturn a ruling made nearly a year earlier by a judge who resoundingly denied custody to Kelley’s sister, Natalie Khawam, because of serious reservations about her honesty and mental stability, court records show.
Petraeus wrote his letter amid a bitter divorce and custody battle between Khawam and Grayson Wolfe, a partner in a DC-based private venture firm.
The letter was filed in DC Superior Court, where the father of Khawam’s 4-year-old son filed for divorce three years ago, two sources said . . .
A judge in November 2011 gave Wolfe sole custody of the couple’s son after finding that Khawam, a lawyer, repeatedly lied under oath and filed bogus domestic-violence and child-abuse claims against her husband after their one-year marriage began crumbling in 2009.
That judge also found that Khawam routinely defied court orders to let the child see his dad and sent harassing e-mails to Wolfe’s friends and business partners that “excoriated Mr. Wolfe for being a horrible father and husband.”
The judge blasted Khawam for giving false evidence, and noted that a court-ordered shrink had found her domestic-violence allegations to be “part of an ever-expanding set of sensational accusations . . . that are so numerous, so extraordinary and [so] distorted that they defy any common-sense view of reality.”
The judge also noted that she “is a psychologically unstable person.”

Let’s pause here, dear reader.

Petraeus is one of the nation’s most decorated military officers. He commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and was recently made director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet here he is, immersing himself in a swirling cesspool of raw craziness:

  • An affair with his worshipful biographer.
  • Using a trick to hide e-mails to his mistress.
  • His “family friend” Jill Kelley exchanging thousands of potentially inappropriate e-mails with his successor in command in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen.
  • Vouching for the good character of Jill’s crazy sister.

This looks a lot like a belated mid-life crisis, or else maybe Petraeus’s reputation as a responsible adult was more image than substance. Were there other affairs before Paula Broadwell? Are we supposed to believe that the general, having resisted temptation for more than three decades of married life, suddenly found himself confronted by the one woman no CIA director could possibly resist? Color me skeptical.

Mark Steyn called this the “missing piece of the puzzle,” and that was before we learned that Gen. Allen had also intervened on behalf of Jill Kelley’s crazy twin sister — you know, the divorceé who made up “an ever-expanding set of sensational accusations” against her ex.

Because that’s what four-star Marine generals do, y’know: Vouch for mental cases in custody battles. It’s right there between the “halls of Montezuma” and the “shores of Tripoli.” Tim Stanley of the London Daily Telegraph writes:

How does this comedy relate to the horror of Benghazi, when four American citizens were killed at the tail end of what increasingly looks like an intelligence operation gone bad? It testifies to the extraordinary incompetence at all levels of the federal security state.

What is really interesting, however, is that this lurid and tawdry soap opera may have accidentally turned up the best explanation for why the Obama administration lied through its teeth about the Benghazi attack, as Townhall’s Katie Pavlich observes:

It isn’t the affair itself that gives us more information, but the affair bringing attention to words spoken by Broadwell in Denver on October 26. She said the CIA was holding prisoners at the annex in Benghazi and Fox News has confirmed with another source this was the case.
This explains two things. The U.S. consulate in Benghazi was being repeatedly attacked because prisoners were being held and because President Obama signed an executive order in 2009 banning secret CIA prisons, they had to find an alternative story to cover-up what really happened, hence the YouTube video.

Wow. So if Broadwell was right — and obviously, she was in a position to know — then either (a) the Obama administration was secretly violating its own announced policy, or (b) some in the CIA had gone “rogue,” and the deliberate obfuscation of what happened in Benghazi was a cover-up of this secret violation of the president’s executive order.

If so, then it bears a resemblance to the Iran-Contra scandal, and if it turns out that things went wrong in Benghazi because the folks in charge were too busy chasing poontang to do their actual jobs, then this story is a long way from being over.

Fausta’s right: Focus, focus focus.

Category: Libya, Military, Scandal, Sex

Capitalization and Heteronormativity?

Posted on | November 13, 2012 | 22 Comments

There’s probably no connection. On the other hand, maybe my insistence on proper spelling, punctuation and grammar — even in such informal contexts as Twitter and text-messaging — is evidence of a traditionalist predisposition. And then there is the transgressive stance:

While it would be politically incorrect to be judgmental about some things, I do not accept bad grammar as an “alternative lifestyle.”

Category: Celebrities

Gadsden Phoenix Rises. Detractors Can Kiss Her Ashes.

Posted on | November 13, 2012 | 47 Comments

by Smitty

Instapundit liked the tweet last night:


 

There was some admission of the suckage of the situation, and discussion that we need to get over the fact that (to paraphrase) BHO delivered on his promise to change the culture fundamentally. For my money, time, and effort, this means that the Tea Parties need to veer even more toward the Libertarian disinterest in the traditional SoCon turf. That is a losing battle which, joined, will ensure a dearth of Conservative victories going down the road.

Most of the discussion was state-internal, and thus of precious little interest outside the Commonwealth. The VA GOP will have a convention to pick candidates for next fall’s off-year gubernatorial election. This means that there won’t be godless Commies and lurkers helping pick a squish to run for office on the GOP ticket. This is a good thing.

There was also a great deal of discussion of the need for unity. The gradual pushing out of senior GOP deadwood must continue, as Tea Partiers continue to infiltrate their local GOP committees. Elections require increased participation. The NOVA Tea Party put in massive amounts of effort, across the spectrum, and didn’t get the results.

Various areas to improve participation were identified, in particular, serving as Election Officers. Recovering the Republic will not be a spectator sport, folks. We can sit here, bickering and arguing over ‘oo shived ‘oo, or we can make adjustments, refine our efforts, grow our numbers, reach out to the young and not of European extraction. An economic horror story is set to unfold with ObamaCare. Clutching the woobie and whining about a shredded Constitution is not going to improve it.

American history isn’t grinding to a halt; our inalienable rights are out of the Left’s reach. Let’s get working to un-frack it, folks.

 

Category: Culture, Tea Party

Rule 5 Sun- er, Tuesday

Posted on | November 13, 2012 | 14 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Ah, what a wretched week this has been. From ecstasy to agony in 24 hours with Romney and Ryan, followed by the landlord telling me it’s time to move on from my burrow. Well, at least we have two things to be grateful for: we’re not living on Staten Island, and we have internet access to enjoy the Consolation of the Boobs. Don’t follow the links when & where you shouldn’t ought to.


Laughing Conservative kicks off this week’s parade of pulchritude with Xiao Wen Ju, followed by Randy’s Roundtable with Karen Elson and Danica Patrick. Grumpy Old Man has some hot chicks with guitars, Blessed Blasphemy has Page 3 Girl Alice Goodwin, some anonymous contributor submitted a pic of Victoria’s Secret’s Newest Model, which Zilla also noted. Brian Noggle also worshiped at the altar of Danica this week, though I think it’s more of a dig at Troglopundit, who posted about Ms. Patrick but failed to observe Rule 5 while doing so. First Street Journal goes above and beyond with Rule 5: Silver Star Edition.


EBL (aside from encouraging Zilla) contributed some Paula Broadwell Rule 5 as well as Mila Kunis, it being the 237th birthday of the Marine Corps.  Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe was Brandi Alexis, his vintage babe was Barbara Bach, while Heidi Klum covers the Sex In Advertising beat. Dustbury verges on lese majeste with Sarah Shahi and also spotlights Niki Karimi.


A View From The Beach marks this unhappy week with Natasha Henstridge, dead Egyptian princesses, hot chicks and zombies to commemorate the 1 millionth hit (Congrats!) , the obligatory cave girl post, Little Surfer Girls, a wake up call from Wylie Wilson, Turn Down Your Audio, and Midnight Music.


Soylent Green’s Monday Motivationer asks: got wood? The Tuesday Titillation exhorts us to Vote American, then it’s Humpday Hawt Britany Nola, Overnighty Natasha, three fingers of top shelf, Commenter #20,000, Alexa Vega in “Machete II”, Corsetcare: Four More Years, Overnighty Holly Randall, Getting Medieval, and Evening Awesome Bryci.


The Daley Gator’s DaleyBabes this week included Evangeline Lilly, Momoka Komachi, some ebony beauties, Sakura Sato, Ana Brenda Contreras, Leangela Davis, and Kayla Fitz.


Thanks to everyone for their links! Submissions for next week’s Rule 5 roundup are due in the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox by Saturday, November 17.

Category: Rule 5

Mary-Kate Olsen’s French Boyfriend

Posted on | November 13, 2012 | 16 Comments

Say hello to Olivier Sarkozy, half-brother of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and managing director of the Carlyle Group’s global financial services division. He’s 42 and Mary-Kate is 26, so they’re both adults but . . .

Well, there’s just something very wrong with this picture, isn’t there?

This photo of the two lovebirds publicly cudding at a New York Knicks basketball game was No. 6 on Buzzfeed’s list of “Top 7 Creepiest Pictures Of Mary-Kate And Her Boyfriend” and No. 1 is extra-creepy, but perhaps not quite as creepy as the photo People magazine published of Mary-Kate strolling with Sarkozy and his daughter.

It has been reported that the couple are “head over heels” in love and Mary-Kate — who, with her twin sister Ashley, has a $1.5 billion fashion empire — told the Wall Street Journal about their relationship: “Everyone has an  opinion. . . . I find it’s better to focus on what’s in front of you  and to keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

“Grotesque” is the word Sarkozy’s ex-wife Charlotte used. Why didn’t the Doug Hutchison-Courtney Stodden marriage creep me out this bad?

 

Category: Celebrities
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