"Paula Broadwell" takes media spotlight

Fascination with Paula Broadwell, the woman linked to Gen. David Petraeus’s resignation from his post as director of the CIA, mounted early this weekend as details about her surfaced.
Her name was the top search on Google from late Friday through Saturday morning, with more than
1,000,000 searches for the woman who according to two sources cited by the Associated Press was the partner in an affair discovered through an FBI investigation, after the agency learned she may have had access to Petraeus’s personal email account.

Hours after the news broke, the New York Times already had a profile posted, followed by several follow-up pieces in The Daily Beast and the Huffington Post.
Broadwell was the four-star general’s biographer, the co-author of the book “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.” She has a number of media appearances under her belt, including one on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
In that January appearance, Broadwell discussed the book and more broadly her relationship with Petraeus, including a segment where when asked if the general had “let his guard down” during her time with him, she said there were “no secrets” to come out.
(Also on POLITICO: A long fall for Petraeus)
She also called Petraeus her “mentor” and revealed that she called him “Peaches” — a nickname that reportedly dates to Petraeus’s high-school days. While embedded in Afghanistan for book research, Broadwell often accompanied Petraeus on five-mile runs, a habit through which Petraeus often talked with younger recruits and members of the media.
In September, Broadwell appeared to play the role of spokeswoman for the general: when the Daily Princetonian asked for her comment on a story, she responded,“Gen. Petraeus is going to send some thoughts which I’ll pass along to you this afternoon,” according to an account from Princeton University’s paper.

Rumors have circulated for some time about possible infidelity on the part of Petraeus, according to multiple reports.
He addressed CIA employees in a statement Friday that condemned his own actions.

“After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours,” the statement said.

Broadwell, a North Dakota native, now lives in a posh Charlotte, N.C. neighborhood, with her two sons and her husband, a radiologist, according to news reports.


“She met Petraeus in 2006 when he spoke at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was a graduate student,” The Charlotte Observer reported in January. “When she told him about her research interests, he handed her his card and offered his help. ‘He really cares about mentoring,’ she says. Later, with his cooperation, she began a doctoral dissertation that included a case study of his leadership.”