Revelations that now-former CIA director David Petraeus had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, have pulled into focus how the press reveres America’s highest-ranked military generals. Not only does the affair itself show the folly of someone allowing his or her self to become too embedded with any one military officer but it also shows what happens when the media builds up a figure like Petraeus and then is given reason to be disappointed.

The press can barely come to grips with the fact that America has “lost” someone widely considered to be a role model for leadership among establishment journalists