After Petraeus scandal, Broadwell grapples with 'normal life'
By Suzanne Kelly
In the aftermath of the affair that led to the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus, his biographer and paramour Paula Broadwell has remained publicly silent, turning instead to family and friends as she tries to assess just how news of the affair might impact her future.
"It's been hard for her family and her to see the picture that's being painted of her," says Broadwell's brother, Steve Kranz, a Washington-based attorney. "Her real focus is her family and her husband and her boys and trying to restore the trust she had with her husband and trying to protect her children from the publicity."
After weeks of media portrayals that have ranged from spurned lover to obsessed stalker, both family and friends of Broadwell have begun to present a fuller picture of her as she grapples with the shock of her affair being thrust into the public spotlight. Part of that outreach included providing photos from the family collection, given first to CNN, of Broadwell with her family and in Afghanistan.
"She's trying to live as normal a life as possible, but there are moments of realizing all that has happened," says a source close to Broadwell who asked not to be identified.
Early on, Broadwell began quietly returning emails from well-wishing friends, but she hasn't done much beyond that, according to sources who have said she is very focused on how the news has affected loved ones. But that strategy appears to be shifting somewhat with the hiring of a Washington-based public affairs group and friends who have known Broadwell for years now going public to combat images of her that they feel are unfair.
Also: Timeline of the Petraeus affair
"I generally felt that perhaps inevitably, but also regrettably, the media coverage of her was just suffocating and one-sided and unfair," says Michael O'Hanlon, who is director of research for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. O'Hanlon says Petraeus introduced him to Broadwell in 2009 and that they too had become friends. He says the media coverage of her "was developing a piling-on quality that, because she is much-less well known than he, and also because she was the author of emails to Jill Kelley, was making her out to be a Glenn Close, 'Fatal Attraction' kind of character in the media's eyes."
O'Hanlon, who also wrote an op-ed defending her Broadwell’s character - but not her actions - in the Baltimore Sun over the weekend, said that he can understand how an affair between the two may have come to fruition. He has spent time with both of them over the years, and particularly over the course of time when Broadwell was writing a biography of Petraeus, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus”.
"These were two people who spent a great deal of time together, who had an obvious infatuation for each other that developed over the years and two people who made a big mistake and let that infatuation become something more when they both had happy families," says O'Hanlon. "I think they did do something wrong, but it happened by mutual consent, not some devious plot."
"Paula needed help more than Dave" in terms of how the public perceives her now, said O'Hanlon who remains friends with both. "Dave has a national reputation that will help him through this, and she doesn't."
Broadwell is getting more help. She recently hired Washington-based public relations firm The Glover Park Group to help reshape her image and to provide a more well-rounded picture her.
It's still not clear whether Broadwell had any warning that Petraeus was going to resign on November 9 and confess to an extramarital affair as the reason for his resignation.
Just days before the news broke, Broadwell emailed a CNN producer offering "a short essay on (Petraeus') leadership principles in light of" his 60th birthday. "Sorry I have been incognito-focused on the phd!" she said in the email.
Broadwell was planning a birthday party at the Washington home of her brother, scheduled for November 10, which turned out to be the day after Petraeus announced his resignation. Her co-author, Vernon Loeb, who is also an editor at the Washington Post, spoke to Broadwell days before the party.
Loeb said in an interview posted on the Washington Post website that everything seemed normal as late as Thursday, the day that President Barack Obama accepted Petraeus' resignation, and one day before the news became public. [Editor’s note: CNN’s Suzanne Kelly was also invited to Broadwell’s party.]
It's possible that Petraeus didn't warn Broadwell about what he intended to do as he spent the week orchestrating the details of his departure. Sources who were told afterward about how the resignation was received within the intelligence community said that many were 'stunned' that Petraeus had decided to include news of the affair in the announcement he made to colleagues at the CIA.
Yet friends of Petraeus defended him early on, telling the media that the former director was ashamed of his behavior. Broadwell, on the other hand, abruptly cancelled her birthday plans once the news broke and tried to stay out of the public eye.
During that time, Kranz, her brother, described Broadwell as being tearful and ashamed of her actions and how the affair impacted her family.
According to a source close to Broadwell, she is still concerned about the outcome of the current FBI investigation that government sources tell CNN is focused on classified material that was found in her home. The source says that the FBI has given Broadwell no insight into how long that investigation might take and says that she is laying low until that legal issue is resolved.
The CIA inspector general also has opened an investigation into whether Petraeus may have misused resources to facilitate the affair while director of the CIA.
Broadwell's brother says she spent the holiday weekend at the beach with family and friends and is now trying to figure out what comes next for her family, her career, and her life.
"She's a very strong person," said Kranz. "I've been concerned about her because it has been so devastating and she feels terrible about what she's done and the pain it's inflicted."
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BENGHAZI ,I'M STILL AMAZED 9/11 WAS JUST ANOTHER STORY AND WE SHOULD GET OVER IT,WE ELECTED AN UNQUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL,INDIVIDUAL AND WE SHOULD GET OVER IT(SINCE WHEN IS GETTING OVER IT )THE WAY TO BETTER A SITUATION. THE PRESIDENT HAS YET TO SHOW US HIS BACKGROUND RECORDS,INCLUDING PASS-PORT ,SCHOOL RECORDS,OR ANY RCORDS OF HOW HE PAID FOR HIS EDUCATION......GET OVER IT !........ONLY FOOLS AND IDIOTS NEVER QUESTION THEIR LEADERS...HE'S A MUSLIM (GET OVER IT)!(HE'S GAY GET OVER IT)! REGGIE LOVE HIS PLAY TOY( GET OVER IT)ETC,ETC,ETC,....THE PRESIDENT HAS DONE MORE TO DEVIDE THIS NATION THAN THE CIVIL WAR DID...THE COMMUNITY ORGANIZER..HAS NEVER DONE A DAYS WORK IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE-TIME AND HIS ENTIRE FAMILY BACKGROUND MAKE'S" TRAILER TRASH" LOOK LIKE THE AMERICAN DREAM.!(GET OVER IT)!
It doesn't matter what "fuller picture" of this woman is. It includes her very ugly parts, too. Most of us don't get those publicly exposed. Too bad – she got caught and ow she pays the price. No sympathy. Liar, stalker, adultress. You can't make that go away.
Think about the schmuck of the husband. How would you like to be held up to the nation as a cuckhold and have to live with it? She is a real piece of work. So is the phoney Petraus...what a fraud...got caught stupping...but what else has he "F" ed during his career?
Did CNN contact Broadwell for her opinion of the Brennan nomination?
The following article is probably the best summation of her real character and behavior. maybe the affair started earlier than claimed, and maybe it ended later.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/13/david_petraeus_paula_broadwell_affair?page=0,1
And this would be her behavior right up to the end
http://washingtonexaminer.com/petraeus-ex-mistress-dwelled-on-his-legacy/article/2515751
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121114/DEFREG02/311140010/Petraeus-8217-Mistress-Acted-Intermediary
Her brother claims that Broadwell's "real focus is her family and her husband and her boys". He's either deluded, or playing a spin game. This is a woman who sent jealous, threatening emails to another woman for getting to close to a man that ISN'T her husband. If her real focus is her husband, she wouldn't care what Jill Kelley did.
Dave- I completely agree!
I agree, and would only like to add, the ONLY reason she is devastated is that it was found out. I'm sure it would of continued, if it wasn't......................
Agree. As Patraeus's disciple, she believes that perception is everything and that the underlying reality does not really matter. Her first act after the affair was exposed was to hire Dee Dee Meyers and the Glover Group. Instead of concentrating on her family and repairing the relationship with her husband, she e-mailed everyone she knows asking them to write articles about what a great person she is. She went so far as to forward the request that Meyers had sent her. Whatever capabilities, accomplishments, and good works she had before, she has adopted a con artist mentality that has overtaken it all.
I agree totally she has no right to care what he does or who talks to the man, she cries now because she got caught no other reason. Marriage is something you are supposed to take very seriousely not straying every until death do you part, I have no pity for the woman don't care what pulic relations firm she hires to try and make over her image it will always be tainted because she strayed.
Paula and her defenders are only concerned about her reputation and how her actions effected her chances at upward mobility. Please Scott Broadwell and Holly Petreaus dump your prospective spouses and move on. It's not like both of you don't have your own lives and careers, because it may be time to think of them. Besides Paula Broadwell will most likely end up on Fox anyway as some kind of "expert".
Exactly and Scott please DNA test the kids this affair went on alot longer.
The timing of their ages and the DP/PB relationship is strangely close.
View the comments to this article http://www.ibtimes.com/who-paula-broadwells-husband-dr-scott-broadwell-ensnared-petraeus-affair-photo-872750
"..his wife was caught in an affair whereby she was [having an affair]with a man old enough to be her father, and that SHE DID NOT WANT IT TO END! It was her own jealousy of another woman that caused the whistle to be blown. SHE HAD EVERY INTENTION AND DESIRE TO KEEP IT GOING INDEFINITELY!
My latest book, "I Steal Wives: a serial adulterer reveals the REAL reasons more and more 'happily married' women are cheating" is an incisive look at this highly explosive subject of female infidelity! It's on a radical uptick in America! And the reasons are the blather you hear on talk TV or read in the self-help book of some therapist with third-hand information. It's the salacious, self-deprecating, insightful look at the problem from a man who had affairs with the wives of 25+ men (and a few women). It's essentially "How to secure your house, as told by a professional burglar."
This book will both terrify you and forever change how you look at relationships! Check it out at Amazon.com and bn.com!
Well......I think she's tough.....smoking.....hot....well you get the picture......
Skippy ... Either you haven't seen any good photos of Paula Broadwell, or you have highly questionable taste in women. She is tall and utterly shapeless, thin and bony, has long chicken legs, and big feet. She is a female Ichabod Crane.
I have great taste in women, thank you, but she just seems to trip my trigger.......she's not a beauty queen or anything....just interesting.....you've never experienced anything like that?
Skip old man ... You are a victim of trick photography.
Yeah you won't admit it....but you'd hit it......
Skippy ... Not even with your hammer.
You would skippy must be a man
This article is a good indication that the PR firm is already hard at work using sources like CNN to resurrect Ms. Broadwell.
Couldn't agree more.
She doesn't need a PR firm, her goose is cooked and should be thinking more about getting her husband and children out from under the bus !!!!
Her family needs a lot of prayers (and I guess she does as well). We all have free will and that makes us susceptible to making horrible mistakes as she did. I hope the kids and husband can somehow get beyond this....
That sums it up perfectly. Wonder when her next book will hit the shelves and who will be stupid enough to buy it?
The real investigation needs to check on her as a "sleeper agent" as a spy espionage!
mossad good point!
and why was she promoted to Lt. Col after having an affair with the general? seems she was sleeping her way to the top
I don't blame the General.......she probably tortured him into the sack......
And she received a promotion this year to Lt .Col? Wonder what for.
That may be another angle to this story how she was rewarded for her service to the general.
Scott better dump this sk!nk asap
some very dirty dealings that this investigation could uncover
She should be demoted to PFC for this action, i'll bet this started in AFGAN not at the CIA to manny red flags about when it started.
As a person who attended West Point (and a combat veteran), just as Broadwell and Petraeus did, I am ashamed that they both lied and cheated on their spouses. This is not the behaviour that one would expect from graduates of our most honored military school. The real tragedy is the damage that their children and spouses will have to endure because they could not control their emotions and act like responsible adults – instead of adulterers. Shame on you Broadwell and Petraeus, you do not deserve the pity of the American people or your families. You both had positions of great responsibility and violated the trust of your loved ones and the American people.
you spell behaviour like you are from Canada or the UK? I am inquisitive, can you go to West Point and not be an American Citizen
As a retired military member, I want to know if females are currently allowed to leave the 2nd button on their Army short sleeve blouse unfastened? In a picture taken with Karl Rove, Major or Lieutenant Colonel (depending on the color of the oak leaf insignia) Paula Broadwell has both buttons unfastened. Every private & West Point cadet is taught the proper wear of the uniform from day one. Did Broadwell forget her training after 15 years of honorable service?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/karl-rove-and-paula-broadwell-took-a-photo-together
Like the NBA they should teach these young grads on the dangers of pu$$y, especially if they ever plan on getting married.
Love your moral compass.... that which neither of these cheating imps have. She is a sociopath and he is a narcissist. She had him for lunch and he then exposed her. They are both garbage.
Dear WestPointer,
I was accepted to your fine school but ended up becoming a zoomie at USAFA. I, too, respect your moral compass. Mine, as I aged, changed. And, as a Lutheran pastor and therapist, i began to realize that life afflicts us all and in different ways. And I learned that life just busts our balls sometimes, despite our best intentions. I'd like to say I'm above it all, but I'm afraid I've sinned more than anyone. And, oddly, I've become more compassionate toward the moral failings of others than I ever was before. I'm not saying it's right....just that it's hard for me to be hard on people when I see the pain they're enduring, especially when it's under their own roof where no one else can really understand it all.
Anyway, thanks for your comment. For what it's worth, I wrote a book recently on women like Broadwell and Kelley. It may not be your thing, at all; but I offer it anyway, because research shows that the old myth that "men are cheating pigs and women are innocent" is no longer true. (At amazon, it's called "I Steal Wives.")
Again, thanks for your great comment. And I have the utmost respect for you grunts from the Point.
Sven
People who are guilty of moral failings deserve no compassion when they affect the innocent people around them.
Paula Broadwell is a married woman who had an affair with a married man. Whatever else is said or thought, this portrayal is not open to interpretation. For this alone she deserves the scorn she is getting. Too bad she didn't think about the collateral damage to her husband, kids, and the other members of both her and the Petraeus families.
fully agreed. I feel terribly sorry for her husband, their children and the general's wife and their children. No amount of PR is going to change how indefinitely wrong is what Patreus and Broadwell did.
She didn't worry about the consequences because she is a totally self absorbed overachiever. A successful husband and two kids were just checkboxes on her list of life's achievements.
This story is absolutely absurd. The fact that she qualifies a faithful and dutiful life with her family as "normal," and has recently hired a PR firm to protect her image reveals her lack of character...Or maybe she's just being honest, after all her behavior indicates that being decent was a bit abnormal and foreign to her.
And regarding the "lopsided coverage": she made a mistake, and ought to accept that and be quiet. Spending money on media pieces to minimize her behavior is foolish–it'll backfire because her name will continue to dominate news media (unfortunately), and we'll just be additionally resentful for it (because she's treating us as fools and wasting vital news space). It also reveals that she's not really concerned about "restoring trust" with her spouse and family...she's still more concerned with egotistical ladder climbing and career preservation. Isn't that what got her into trouble in the first place?
I totally agree with you. It seems to me that Paula Broadwell is more concerned about her image than anything else.
It is reported she has hopes of reviving her career. Now just what career that may be is a mystery .. maybe Consultant to Terrorists, or Professional Impersonator, or Con Artist, or Escort (Outcall Only). The more we learn about her the less qualified she appears to be for any other line of work.
Poor, poor Paula. She had to cancel her birthday celebration. How unfair. How will she ever recover. The affair just "happened". Nothing like a good mother, always thinking about what is best for her "two young sons." I pity her husband, who has to chose between staying with a lying, cheating wife, and keeping his family together for the sake of the boys.
Always hurt the ones you love. I bet her children have a very different view of mom now.
That first photo is mis-labeled. It is not in Colorado. That is unmistakably Gorgoza Park tubing hill in Park City, Utah.
Sorry Stephen this is not Gorgoza in Park City, Utah (wich faces an interstate). This is taken in Frisco Colorado. Frisco Adventure Park.
No It is Fresno California.
Could be Frisco as in San Fran.
Yeah, I guess the words on the tubes should have been obvious to me . . .
Retired Brig Gen Shelton seems to have spoken to a British rag and is blaming Broadwell. Could this end up getting ugly between the Petreaus and Broadwell camps?
"Her real focus is her family and her husband and her boys...' Maybe now, not then.
It's been hard...
Didn't seem to bother her before.
Ya I would think she's used to "hard" things
Face it guys, how many of us would jump at the chance to have a fling with a good looking woman half our age. Be real.
Yea and get some STDs also
Renew your vows buddy
Actually I would prefer not to be incarcerated. so....no, I wouldn't jump at that "opportunity".
You need to see a few good photos of Paula Broadwell. She is not a hottie by any stretch of the imagination. She has the typical runner's body ... tall and shapeless, thin and bony, long chicken legs ... and BIG feet.
Dang, Mike. Ease up on us BIG footed girls. You seem a little obsessed there, buddy.
Paula doesn't seem like a barrel of laughs. Her personality is too self-aware, self-impressed, and serious. I would take a pass . . .
CNN is euqally respnsible for Fiscal Cliff Crises by NOT Asking Obama tough question on solving Fiscal Cliff rather than Entertaining Obama with Soft Campaign Style Questions.
I think she's a spy.
fish an crabs i guess
whats the difference between paula an snooki
Yes, I'm sure it was "hard" when you were "embedded" and he was "all in".
The life of a narcissist is not always as glamorous as one would hope.
Oh, Paula Paula, Paula. Now you want Dee Dee Myers, your PR person to get revive your adulterer reputation so that you can reach your goal of being a politician or National Security Advisor? Don't you think the money you spend on PR would be better spent on seeking a moral compass? You lost your and hurt countless people and cuckolded your husband in the process.
"It's been hard for her family and her to see the picture that's being painted of her," says Broadwell's brother, Steve Kranz, a Washington-based attorney.
Yes, it was hard for General Petraeus too. And therein lies the problem.
The hardness was All In and they lied about it. Therein is the problem.
That's strange...she felt just fine while she was having the affair...until she got caught...typical lying cheat.
Her husband is smart. If she is hiring a PR firm to fix her image she probably wants to write another book, most likely about the affair. If he sticks around for about another year or so he could clean up come divorce time from the profits of the book(s) she will have written by then. Patience.
I would rather have a little less money and keep my self respect but that's just me.
The photo caption says he stepped down in November 2011. It was 2012 (just recently!).
now she wants simpathy, she had no remorse when she was with the General so all of a sudden she gets caught sending emails simply becasue she thought someone else was after him please!!! her priorities were not with her husband or family when she was having her affair. im sure if the General was dovorcong his wife she would of divorce her husband.. simply pathetic.
"It's possible that Petraeus didn't warn Broadwell about what he intended to do as he spent the week orchestrating the details of his departure". She admitted to the affair in an interview with the FBI, then went on a "romantc" weekend with her husband, apparently happy at the begining at hubby no wiser of what she admitted to. Probably didn't expect the information to get out.
I feel for the schmuck.
Dear CNN. The Obama administration tried to hide a terrorist attack from the American people by lying to us regarding the events in Benghazi. Yes, we want to know why the administration failed to protect or aid our citizens but just as important is the issue you keep ignoring. The fact that a sitting President tried to cover up a terrorist attack! Do you even comprehend the magnitude? He tried to deceive the American public into thinking it was all a demonstration. Wake up people! Wake up CNN. Think about it...a president trying to hide and cover up a terrorist attack. Do you have a pulse Anderson Cooper? Are you not a journalist? Does CNN think a president should try and hide a terrorist attack from us?
At first it appeared that it was a demonstration according to reports. It was not until the facts evolved that it was a terrorist attack. When these things happen, all the information does not come out for some time. In the meantime, however, the public decides what actually happened, and the rumors start.
Because no one thinks there's any 'there' there regarding Benghazi. No one tried to deceive anyone. Obama won and is your president for the next four years. Deal with it and let it go. You Obama haters will always try to find something to make into a scandal. Good luck.
Dear Tool,
You are a tool.
Dear Tool,
You are a fool.
stop beating a dead horse, already!!!!!!
Mans got a famous wife now.... He can look back with pride on who his wife banged over him....
Lol
Right. And now he can say, "my trophy wife." 😉
>>says O'Hanlon. "I think they did do something wrong, but it happened by mutual consent, not some devious plot."
>>
----
Oh, that just makes it so much better. Their affair was a mutual decision and not a plot to betray their families.
I get it now.
Not.
Can't wait for the movie.
I don't care how well rounded they try to portray her as. She is still a cheater who betrayed her husband's and children's trust.
You can't sugar coat that. DP is no better, but the story here is about her image, not his.
i bet she got a lot of DPed
If PB was truly interested in repairing her marriage and protecting her children she would be in marriage/family counseling. Instead she hires a PR firm to help reshape her public image. It shows what her true priorities are despite what friends write in puff pieces about how remorseful she is for hurting her family. Hopefully her husband recognizes what a self-absorbed person she is and divorces the sk- an-k asap.
Kick her to the curb and get the kids DNA tested!
I like how CNN uses the word "kin" like it was a regular English word, and not some backwoods lingo, or dialogue from a Patrick Swayze movie.
I'm originally from Appalachia. The word "kin" came from kindred and was brought over from Europe by the Irish and Scottish who settled into Kentucky (where "Next of Kin" was filmed). You show etymological ignorance & prejudice by dissing a word still predominately used in the southern regions of United States and elsewhere.
Surprised her husband hasn't filed for divorce yet. at best she's a cheater, at worst she's a traitor (depending on what the FBI finds).
Amen