David Petraeus Did Betray Us: Ten Sentence Story #170

With a name like “Petraeus” so easily and so succinctly and so perfectly rhyming with “Betray Us” — we all knew it was only a matter of time before the decorated war general turned on us and, turned on us all he most assuredly did, just so he could diddle his biographer and not-so-secret admirer.

Must it always be inevitable that the Golden Boy falls into tarnish and what we all once thought had great, intrinsic value, was really only slag plated with nickel?

How many more penis-in-vagina stories do we have to tender as a nation before we can hope to move on from national bedroom dramas playing out in our televisions?

Are there no good men left to lead us?

Are there no right women left to defend us?

The whole Petraeus mythology is now in ruins and, I suppose, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy — who chose to run the CIA like a war by dropping bombs — instead of quietly tending overhearing and purposeful subterfuge.

A man who is led by his reproductive anatomy isn’t capable enough to be known for loyalty or subtlety.

The CIA requires some sort of quiet confidence — and that can never be found in the coquettish relationship between the unloved and the taken — and betrayals and broken hearts are left in the wake of human pathways to despair.

In the aftermath of Petraeus betraying us, we are left to realize that the price of loving an idol is fakery and falsehoods that leave us empty and impugned.

Now we sit, shapeless and shaken, as we face a new day without another hero — and we’re better off in the end standing together than standing down and deferring to a man who was never ever better than us — even though he pretended to be just like us.