More funny things had happened to the general.
Bob Woodward 在邮报上报道,Fox News 的头头,共和党右翼代言人,Rupert Murdoch 的打手 Roger Ailes 曾经劝说 Petraeus 不要接受 CIA 局长任命,如果总统不给他三军总统领 (Joint Chiefs of Staff) 的职位,就退休竞选总统,他会全力支持。Petraeus 没答应,而是接受了 CIA 局长的职位。
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle ... ml?hpid=z2
Roger Ailes, the longtime Republican media guru, founder of Fox News and its current chairman, had some advice last year for then-Gen. David H. Petraeus.
So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.
The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.
McFarland also said that Ailes — who had a decades-long career as a Republican political consultant, advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — might resign as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign. At one point, McFarland and Petraeus spoke about the possibility that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., which owns Fox News, would “bankroll” the campaign.
这篇报道里充满了有趣的细节。例如,Roger Ailes 对 Woodward 无力的否认:我是开玩笑的啦,我派出去的使者 (Kathleen McFarland) 理解错了,还以为我是认真的呢。他还说“我才不是什么 King Maker 呢”。中国人对这个现象有句话,此地无银三百两。
看样子是 Rupert Murdoch 自己看中了 Petraeus 的而要做他的后台,Why not? 扶持 David Cameron 上台的计划不是很成功么?
还有这段:
“It’s never going to happen,” Petraeus said. “You know it’s never going to happen. It really isn’t.
“My wife would divorce me,” he added. “And I love my wife. . . . We have a beautiful house.” Both Petraeus and McFarland laughed. “With his-and-hers bathrooms, believe it or not. I just want to live in it. I’ve never spent a night in it.”
Ah the irony.