Yes, he is a Republican but he hasn't been the type that bangs on the family values drum. And really, when you get down to it, his party affiliation is not the issue. I really wish I could find the article that spelled this out and link it, but the reason it's a big deal has nothing to do with moral fiber. The reason it's a big deal is because he's with the CIA and the CIA sees people who conduct extra-marital affairs as compromised. It's the sort of thing that an enemy could exploit. The military also takes a very dim view of this behavior; my understanding is, if he were still a general, he could be court-martialled. So, as silly as it seems to us on the outside, in the intelligence community having an affair is as big a deal as leaving a top secret file on a park bench somewhere and Petraeus did exactly the right thing by tendering his resignation.anthriel wrote: Is Petraeus a Republican, btw, or associated with Republican values in some way?
I kind of wondered why this was such a big deal too, Alatar. I'm not a big fan of infidelity in general, but does it really affect his ability to do his job?
He's also not the first CIA Director to resign over an idiot move, as it turns out. Some guy named Deutch turned in his resignation after it was found he was keeping classified info on his home computer. Oops.
As for why the FBI was involved, it could be any number of reasons, but they do perform periodic checks on people with high levels of security clearance, or so I've been told by friends and acquaintances in the aerospace industry. My thesis advisor's father worked for Rockwell during the Cold War and he told me once that every year or so the FBI would be banging on the neighbors' doors, asking if they've noticed anything odd about the family's spending and travel habits. Life gets weird when you join the spook show. I have one friend who took a pay cut so she wouldn't have to deal with maintaining a Top Secret clearance anymore.
Frelga, the job of testifying before Congress will now fall to the Acting Director.