Petraeus too hot -- he's out. But can he -- will he -- talk?

Verne Strickland / November 14, 2012

November 13, 2012  Matthew Vadum 

As the scandal regarding the Obama administration’s deadly bungling in Benghazi, Libya, begins to heat up, suddenly CIA director David Petraeus is out, felled by his own sex scandal.

Complicating matters further, Ronald Kessler reports at Newsmax that “Senior FBI officials suppressed disclosure of the highly sensitive case, apparently to avoid embarrassment to Obama during his re-election campaign.”

Congressman Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the details of the Petraeus situation that have been reported by the media so far don’t make sense.

“It seems this [investigation] has been going on for several months, and yet now it appears that they’re saying the FBI did not realize until Election Day that Gen. Petraeus was involved. It just doesn’t add up,” said King.

According to the administration, the Petraeus resignation makes the ex-CIA chief unavailable to testify in Congress this week about what the administration knew and when it knew it. Acting CIA director Michael Morrell is now expected to testify Thursday before the House and Senate intelligence committees behind closed doors.

Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee’s panel on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, said Petraeus’s resignation ultimately won’t prevent Congress from compelling his testimony

“The fact that he’s resigned and had an affair has nothing to do with whether he will be subpoenaed to Congress. I hope we don’t have to subpoena a four star general and a former CIA director. I would hope he would come voluntarily but if he won’t he will be subpoenaed. But there is no way we can get to the bottom of Benghazi without David Petraeus.”

The knives have apparently been out for Petraeus for a while. In a story that may have been planted by the Obama White House, Fox News reported earlier this month that the CIA did almost nothing while the consulate was in flames. Anonymous officials also told the Wall Street Journal that the CIA failed to provide adequate security at the mission. The CIA replied that its personnel were involved in repelling the attack.

Petraeus is the highly respected Army general who commanded the successful “surge” that helped to turn around the war in Iraq. As the nation searches for answers about the Sept. 11 atrocities in Benghazi, this war hero has been made to fall on his sword, conveniently disposed of to protect the president.

Leftists won’t lose sleep over Petraeus’s ouster because they already despise him. MoveOn published a full-page ad in the New York Times in 2007 accusing the then-general of “cooking the books for the White House” to justify President George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. The ad labeled Petraeus “General Betray Us.” The message prompted an unusual official rebuke from the U.S. Senate, which voted 72 to 25 to condemn the offensive ad. To no one’s surprise, then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden missed the vote.

It was reported last week that the married Petraeus had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and suddenly Democrats, whose party stands for abortion-on-demand and free condoms, are outraged. (There is also talk that Petraeus may have been involved with another woman not his wife.) As Robert Spencer noted, Obama and his party care nothing about sexual improprieties.

In fact it can be argued that among his fellow Democrats such behaviors can be resume-builders. (See Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy, Eliot Spitzer, and recently, Bob Menendez.)