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Newspaper advice column may have sunk the career of CIA boss Petraeus

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

November 10, 2012 | 4 min read

Rarely can a newspaper advice column have created such an international sensation. If this tale is true, it toppled CIA boss David Petraeus, a man once talked about as a future president.

Petraeus with Paula

Petraeus,60,resigned on Friday after admitting to an extramarital affair. The woman said to be his romantic interest was 39-year-old Paula Broadwell, his biographer, a married mother of two.

In Chuck Klosterman's The Ethicist advice column in the New York Times on July 13, an anonymous reader sought advice about an affair his wife was having with a "government executive" whose job "is seen worldwide as a demonstration of American leadership."

The anonymous reader praised the government executive as "gracious" and "absolutely the right person for the job." He then asked if he should acknowledge the affair or let it continue until the project succeeds.

The Gawker website said, "Sounds like the government executive could hold a position like, say, the director of the CIA, right? In other words, did Paula Broadwell's husband know about her affair with David Petraeus and then turn to, of all people, Chuck Klosterman for advice? Maybe!"

The website recited the facts. The reader says he's "watched the affair intensify over the last year," which matches the Wall Street Journal's timeline of the affair (August 2011 until "several months ago").

" It also makes sense that Broadwell's husband would have some idea about the affair considering she apparently was always off jogging with Petraeus," says Gawker, " not to mention the fact that she's spent a good deal of her career worshipping/writing "fan fiction" about the former general."

The reader

>asked%20Klosterman%20for%20help,%20and%20Gawker%20says%20we%20have%20to%20assume%20he'd%20at%20least%20consider%20the%20writer's%20advice,%20which%20was:

Don't%20expose%20the%20affair%20in%20any%20high-profile%20way.%20It%20would%20be%20different%20if%20this%20man's%20project%20was%20promoting%20some%20(contextually%20hypocritical)%20family-values%20platform,%20but%20that%20doesn't%20appear%20to%20be%20the%20case.%20The%20only%20motive%20for%20exposing%20the%20relationship%20would%20be%20to%20humiliate%20him%20and%20your%20wife,%20and%20that's%20never%20a%20good%20reason%20for%20doing%20anything.%20This%20is%20between%20you%20and%20your%20spouse.%20You%20should%20tell%20her%20you%20want%20to%20separate,%20just%20as%20you%20would%20if%20she%20were%20sleeping%20with%20the%20mailman.%20The%20idea%20of%20" suffering in silence for the good of project is illogical. how would quiet divorce this man mistress hurt an international leadership initiative he probably be relieved.>

So did the affair end several months ago because of Chuck Klosterman, Gawker wonders. Did Chuck Klosterman's wisdom trigger a series of events that would eventually lead to the resignation of the director of the CIA?

Klosterman was suspicious of the letter writer's motives: "I halfway suspect you're writing this letter because you want specific people to read this column and deduce who is involved and what's really going on behind closed doors (without actually addressing the conflict in person). That's not ethical, either."

Gawkwer says, "If any of this story is true, and I vote yes, it is all true, then one thing is for sure: Chuck Klosterman is an American hero."

If you want to hear more from the beauteous Paula you can find her here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiEgiUNs_bk talking about the Petraeus book and Petraeus himself.

Normally we'd just paste in the video but YouTube says , "Embedding disabled by request." Now that gives a whole new meaning to the word "embedding." You'll like the bit about "heavy breathing" in connection with their jogging together.

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