On Thursday, the Associated Press reported "Four-star general-turned-CIA director David Petraeus almost resigned as Afghanistan war commander over President Barack Obama's decision to quickly draw down surge forces, according to a new insider's look at Petraeus' 37-year Army career." Network coverage? Zero. Nexis searching showed nothing on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today.
But NPR's The Two-Way Blog noted one reason: the insider author, Paula Broadwell, said AP was mistaken. She replied on Twitter: "#Petraeus did NOT consider quitting, though mentors/friends encouraged it". It's obvious that if Bush were still president, this report and this author would be red-hot and high-profile. Are they waiting on this story until a real "news cycle" emerges? Or is it more Obama Defense Syndrome? No Bob Woodward treatment here?
AP NPR blogger Mark Memmott added:
The book — All In: The Education of General David Petraeus — is by Paula Broadwell from Harvard's Center for Public Leadership. Vernon Loeb, metro editor at The Washington Post worked with her on it...
This isn't one of those "right-wing Obama hater" books the media would dispatch without a second thought. Broadwell has contributed to NPR as well as the Washington Post-owned Foreign Policy magazine's "Best Defense" blog, operated by ex-WaPo bigfoot Tom Ricks. One wonders why NPR and the Post (the newspaper whose Metro editor worked on this book) has been slow off the mark like everyone else. The Post did run the apparently erroneous AP report on its website. AP later fixed the story:
Conservative writer Max Boot had urged he take that course of action, but Petraeus decided that resigning would be a "selfish, grandstanding move with huge political ramifications" and that now was "time to salute and carry on," according to a forthcoming biography.
"Director Petraeus has publicly stated that he never contemplated resignation," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said Thursday.
Oh, conservatives said something to Petraeus. We know what conservative writers have to say isn't as newsworthy as say, a Rolling Stone journalist.
