Stray Penises and Politicos

[ksoze]

Excellent piece by David Simon ("The Wire", "Treme&quot on the media fixation on the sexual missteps of public figures.

David Petraeus has had sex outside his marriage, as have many men and many women. Human sexuality and compulsion are not in any way related to intelligence. It’s not that the dumb or powerful are more prone to fucking around, or that the intelligent and powerless do it to any greater degree. It’s that men in general are hopelessly and permanently prone to contemplate sex and furtive romance and, sometimes, to act on it. The reasons they do so are crude, ordinary and inevitable. Women are also hopelessly and permanently prone to contemplate furtive romance and sex — and yes, I changed the order, I know — and the reasons they do so are only marginally less crude, ordinary and inevitable.

http://davidsimon.com/stray-penises-and-politicos/

[HereSince1628]

1. Unfortunately human sexuality has a LONG history with "I"ntelligence as in spying.

Hasn't David Simon ever watched a James Bond movie?

WTF does Mr Simon think men go into Intelligence for? Public Service?

Hell no! As any Bondgirl can tell you...it's about seduction of a probing enemy.

[Hydra]

2. I liked the point of this commentary

But David is making the same mistake too much of America is.

David Patraeus is a criminal on a grand scale. He killed who knows how many to cover up the corruption in Iraq, and he oversaw the expansion of Afghanistan. Who knows what else he's been doing in the CIA.

I agree with David's point that where he stuck his penis was largely irrelevant. On the other hand, this has broken the glamour Patraeus has been hiding under for so long, so it's hard to argue with.

If we as a nation aren't going to be excited by war crimes and dead bodies, we may as well get excited by adultery.