It's sad that the head of the CIA needs to resign because of a discrepancy in his private life. By all accounts, General Petraeus is amazing at what he does.

My Dad proposed to my Mom on their first date, and have been happily married ever since. I think it is disgusting what General Petraeus did to his Wife. But if he's the best person to lead the CIA and keep our country safe, I want him in that position.

I was in Germany just before the 2008 Election. One night, I struck up a conversation with an elderly couple at a restaurant. A few beers later they went on a rant about how Americans feel entitled to judge the personal lives of their public servants. I sympathize with their sentiment: "Clinton was great, stay out of his bedroom."

A sneak peek of Ryan's opinion

Compromised? No government/intelligence information was compromised? "He shouldn't lead the CIA because he can't keep even keep his affair secret!" ... joke?

Josh -- an affair does compromise the Dir of the CIA since there is now leverage on him. If he is hiding an affair that leaves him vulnerable to someone telling him to do something or they will tell his wife/press.

Now the real issue is why could he not disclose and remove the leverage and continue to do his job? David Letterman did this exact thing. Jack Welch did the same when his affair was discovered. Obviously, this is politically untenable for Petraeus. He should have been able to disclose and move on.

It may have been different had he not been a military officer. Fundamental concepts of personal integrity and honor are woven into the role: they are what enable you to lead and to send men to their death. Dishonesty of any kind undermines this absolutely: it really is binary.

Dishonest adultery, which he appears to have committed, fundamentally lacks integrity. By engaging in it he brought dishonor to his wife and to himself and this by itself is incompatible with his service.

This is completely separate from the question of whether he was compromised, and from whatever political pressure he may have been under. Though these may also have been in play, my guess is that he feels profound shame, unique to his role as an officer.

Interesting that the moral shame of infidelity is greater than the moral shame of assassination or torture that the Dir of the CIA needs to oversee or be involved in.

While I see your point Steven I think this is most likely politically motivated. This notion that our political leaders must be infallible or morally perfect is wrong. He had obviously been doing the job while having the affair and no one complained about his job performance. What changed after revealing it? He may of lost some moral high ground but nothing that wouldn't have passed after a news cycle.

As is often the case with these situations, the issue isn't the affair; it's the ancillary pieces. You simply can't have secrets that could lead to blackmail and be CIA chief. If you allow yourself to be in that position, you have to quit. Those were the rules when he took the job and he knew them and broke them in a haphazard and really silly way

If this were someone who didn't have access to America's biggest secrets, I don't think he should have or would have resigned. If this was the Commerce Secretary or a congressperson, there would have been no resignation. A number of congresspeople have been caught up in all sorts of affairs and scandals and they rarely resign.

National security is different.

Jeremiah - I agree if the affair is secret but once he discloses the secret is gone, the leverage and threat is gone.

Jon- Disclosure doesn't fix the secret. He put himself in a position to be blackmailed. He has to go. If it was known that he had an open marriage, he could stay because there's no blackmail risk

The actual details of what happened make it so he can't stay. She hacked into his gmail and was sending out emails. He can't stay which I think is unfortunate because he apparently was doing a good job

So his fatal error was not having an affair it was not picking a better password,

Jon, clearly the Director of the CIA sees it as one of his duties to oversee torture/assassination. Those are part of the burden of that service, just as killing or causing others to die or be killed is one of the burdens of military service.

Obviously not so with adultery and being publicly exposed as a liar.

Here's another perspective on Petraeus from BuzzFeed's Michael Hastings...

The buzzfeed post is so weirdly sensational I have a hard time taking it seriously. I don't understand the connection between anything it's talking about and the facts.

Facts seem to be that the guy had an affair with his biographer, she enjoyed some degree of access that was unwarranted. And he let her access his personal gmail. It's just incompetence and a breach of the moral code he holds himself up to. If he'd refused to resign the heat on his family would be worse than it will already be.

He had to resign.