Cleared in the Petraeus Scandal, Gen. John Allen Gets His Promotion
And his nomination to lead NATO forces is back on track.
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Less than 48 hours after Marine Corps General John Allen cited family health issues in bucking President Obama's nomination for supreme allied commander of NATO with his sudden retirement, the White House appears to have a backup in place.
And his nomination to lead NATO forces is back on track.
Over two months after allegations surfaced that he'd carried on an inappropriate relationship with Jill Kelley, the Tampa socialite at the center of the Petraeus scandal, General John Allen is off the hook.
It was hard not to be just skeptical Thursday morning, when his longtime friend released Petraeus's beautifully handwritten letter of contrition and gave a few news outlets an interview about it.
Jill Kelley's seemingly endless charms got her into the White House three times this fall.
The sprawling Love Pentagon investigation into the private emails of ex-CIA director David Petraeus, his mistress-biographer Paula Broadwell, and Gen. John Allen has caused multiple reporters to note the irony that our massive surveillance state has started eating itself. It is not yet sated.
Defenders of the FBI agent who emailed a shirtless photo of himself to Jill Kelley said the image was a joke. Now that it's been leaked to The Seattle Times's Mike Carter, we understand why.
The Love Pentagon did not start with Paula Broadwell sending emails to Jill Kelley, but with her emailing a warning under the alias "KelleyPatrol" to Gen. John Allen in Afghanistan.
Jill Kelley does not appreciate the flood of attention she's been receiving since the investigation into David Petraeus's affair -- the one that she started -- captivated the nation.
While David Petraeus's sexy email scandal has given us many things—a clearer picture of Petraeus's public relations machine, insight into the military-industrial-housewife complex, the understanding that 60-year-olds are no more responsible about sexy Internet use than are tweens—we still don't understand where it came from.
How could Gen. John Allen be such great pen pals with Jill Kelley that they exchanged 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails? An Allen defender says they were not involved ("Allen has never been alone with Jill Kelley") and that number has been wildly overstated.
Defenders of both ex-CIA director David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen deny they were romantically involved with Jill Kelley, and even if that's true, the lady sure knew how to pull strings.
General John Allen, the man who succeeded David Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, reportedly sent hundreds of "potentially inappropriate" emails to one of the women involved in the scandal that led to Petraeus' resignation from the CIA.
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