Sex in the CIA

When the economic collapse of 2008 took place an important story got buried. It seems an investigation discovered that employees at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) were using their work time to surf pornography sites.

A few of the offenses included:

*A senior attorney at the SEC’s Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office.

*An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as “Sex” or “Pornography.” Yet he still managed to amass a collection of “very graphic” material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC’s internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense, and received a 14-day suspension.

*Seventeen of the employees were “at a senior level,” earning salaries of up to $222,418

As you may or may not recall one of the reasons for the economic collapse was the lack of oversight on behalf of the SEC.

Who had time to pay attention to what Bernie Madoff and his ilk were doing when there were porn sites to peruse?

You’d think given the history of sex scandals in this country, I wouldn’t have been surprised to wake up in DC this weekend to the news that Petraeus was embroiled in one. Maybe it’s because I was with veterans from numerous wars all weekend long that it disturbed me so much. While our soldiers are risking their lives to protect us against terrorists, our intelligence agency (there’s a misnomer if there ever was one) is literally screwing around.

Or maybe it’s just because Petraeus looks so much like Barney Fife. Not exactly my idea of irresistible.

Officer Barney Fife

General David Petraeus

Whatever the reason, I was completely taken aback to see the Wall Street Journal headlines of Petraeus stepping down. Many regarded Petraeus as one of the best generals of our era. That he would put his career and his marriage on the line in this way is simply mind-boggling. In that same way of Bill Clinton. Of John Edwards.

The headline story is still unraveling.

But one of the strangest comments about the Petraeus affair came from an NBC anchor:

We know powerful men have more of these affairs than women do. 

I’ve heard that sort of statement before and it always confuses me.

Y’all help me out here. How does the logic work?

Powerful men are all having affairs with the same woman?

Powerful men are all having affairs with each other?

Does that make any sense to you or is it just me?

Or is it just more myth-making by so-called reporters?

Do you think the Petraeus affair ought to be headline news?