Today I will steer away from Jamrock and address what the rest of the world seems to be talking about: former CIA director General David Petraeus’ resignation after it was discovered that he had an affair with his biographer. It is making news in JA, but more with a sort of detached fascination. More broadly, it seems like a lot of the coverage consists of either a whole lot of people casting their own morals on the situation or simply expressing a voyeuristic penchant for gossip. Both natural reactions, of course.

Let’s start by stating that powerful people are not immune to affairs and scandals and rotten judgment. The premise that politicians or military generals or even CEOs are immune to such behaviour has never made sense to me. Although, it would not be so far-fetched to think that a disciplined and brilliant fellow such as Petraeus might be able to control himself. Alas, he could not.

But that’s not what this post is about. Instead, I’ve been wondering about the timing of all of this. If the news had broken prior to the Nov. 6 election date, would the outcome have been different? As soon as I heard the news. I immediately thought: whoever was able to keep this under wraps until after the election deserves a gigantic raise, and whoever is responsible for digging up dirt on the Obama administration must be kicking themselves.

Putting on my PR hat, if I were the Romney camp, I would have spun the story to capitalize on the potential threat to national security and to question the competence, integrity and trustworthiness of the administration itself. I have heard commentary that Obama and those in his inner circle are not implicated in any way, though.

I have no conclusions or certainties. Only the question as to whether or not we would have been waking up to another U.S. President on Nov. 7. Just an interesting, now purely academic question.