POLITICO: After more than a decade at war and a scandal that almost ended his career, Marine Gen. John Allen is back home and considering retirement — rather than pursuing the job of running U.S. European Command, a source close to the four-star general tells POLITICO…
The White House stuck by Allen’s nomination for the top European post after a Pentagon investigation cleared him of any misconduct involved with emails he sent in connection with the extramarital affair that forced former CIA Director David Petraeus out of office.
But a source close to Allen says he feels as though he’s being pushed out — partly over the email scandal that Pentagon officials fear will never completely go away and partly because the other services are angling for one of their own to fill the coveted post as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Brussels… (more)
EDITOR: The current fervor to judge everyone by their personal life is thinning the field for leaders. Had the same attitudes prevailed earlier in history, we would likely not have had George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, FDR, Dwight Eisenhower, JFK, Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, to name but a few.
A half century ago, such concerns would have been met with the admonition: “Mind your own business.” We can’t recall hearing that in decades.
