Another drizzle-gloom morning here on California’s northern coast, but the outside air is still a bit more warm than a week ago.
Winter is not such a cut-and-dried event up here — it comes as if in selected waves.

So too, the drizzling gloom a-mighty in DC where David Petraeus has become the stuff of dazzling folklore, the scandal carries earmarks of some really good, dirty stuff — introducing new characters and situations on a near-daily basis.

(Illustration found here).

Last Friday, Petraeus delivered the first shot, resigning because he’d cheated on his wife.
And then, it turned out the ‘other woman’ was none other than his ‘official‘ biographer, Paula Broadwell, who’d penned the all-inclusive bio of King David with the now-tingle-like title of ‘All In.’
Over the weekend, Broadwell’s life was pretty-well dissected and all kinds of fruitful stories emerged from the gushing MSM on the couple’s frolics in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Apparently, this whole shooting match started when another woman, now IDed as Jill Kelley, supposedly an ‘unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.,’ called in the FBI because of harassing e-mails from Broadwell.
The illegitimate coupling of Petraeus and Broadwell came to light as the FBI traced the e-mails.
Right there enough for a good TV mini-series on the CW.

One could just take the e-mails and create a most-moist, military version of ‘Peyton Place.’
Via The Daily Beast: Some of the steamier messages made clear that it was an affair. The besotted Broadwell may have viewed the curvaceous Kelley as a threat. Broadwell may be able to run a six-minute mile with Petraeus, but Kelley looks like a woman who lets the guys do all the running—and in her direction.

However, this morning more shit.
Now more “inappropriate communications,” this time between Gen. John Allen, Petraeus’ replacement as the top US commander in Afghanistan and social liaison Kelley.
And talk about some talk — from the LA Times:

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review.
He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

This entire foul-tasting, shit-bang reads like a trash novel, or a really-really weird war movie, as the Washington Post details:

It also further calls into question the personal behavior of two of the U.S. military’s highest-ranking and most respected figures, who apparently ignored concerns about the highly sensitive nature of their positions as they embraced personal relationships with younger women who were not their wives.

And then, and then, mix this shit into the generals’ soup:

New details about how the Federal Bureau of Investigation handled the case suggest that even as the bureau delved into Mr. Petraeus’s personal life, the agency had to address conduct by its own agent — who allegedly sent shirtless photos of himself to a woman involved in the case prior to the investigation.
FBI officials declined to identify the agent, so he couldn’t be reached to give his side of the story.
The agent is now under investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal-affairs arm of the FBI, according to two officials familiar with the matter.

On the ‘Real Housewives‘ side of the street — from Slate:

Steve Boylan, a friend and former spokesman for David Petraeus, spoke to ABC News today about the mood of Petraeus’ wife of 38 years, Holly.
It appears neither Boylan nor his former boss have the words to describe just how angry Mrs. Petraeus was to learn that her husband was having an affair.
“Well, as you can imagine, she’s not exactly pleased right now,” Boylan said, putting it mildly.
The now-former CIA director went one step further when summing up his wife’s emotional state to Boylan over the weekend, but apparently was also at a loss for the proper adjective: “Furious would be an understatement.”
…
Boylan said that Petraeus is “devastated,” both because of the “pain this has caused his family” and because it cost him his job.
“He had a huge job and he felt he was doing great work and that is all gone now,” Boylan said.

All this would be fine and dandy if some important stuff wasn’t happening — like US GIs dying in Afghanistan for no reason while the top brass play the fiddle.
The US is fairly-well f*cked up.