American culture, I explained, judges extra-marital affairs very harshly, so a senior official caught in such a position could easily be subject to blackmail – something that a CIA director, of all people, must avoid. My foreign interlocutors replied that, with the affair now exposed, the blackmail threat has been removed, so Petraeus should stay in office.
从我Twitter上的内容看，大部分外国观察者并不能理解一个身居其祖国最高级、最敏感职位之人应该因为其私生活而下台——这种事情的直接影响仅仅局限于他的家庭。我解释说，美国文化将婚外情看得非常严重，因此如此位置的高官很容易被勒索——而这是作为中央情报局局长所必须杜绝的。我的外国评论者回复说，现在婚外情已经曝光了，勒索威胁也就随之烟消云散了，因此彼得雷乌斯应该继续任职。