Talk:All In: The Education of General David Petraeus

Latest comment: 11 years ago by Saforrest in topic Reviews

Reviews

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Boot, being less well known than Doris Kearns Goodwin, seemed to need better identification. There is ample description of him on his Wikipedia page on which editors strove to present a balanced view. It notes that he is a "self-admitted neocon" as mentioned in one paper for which he formerly wrote, the Christian Science Monitor.

The characterization of the book as "hagiographic," certainly is well founded, given the surreptitious relationship that was said to have begun after Petraeus left the US Army, but I wonder if it was judged hagiography before the exposure of the affair? Activist (talk) 03:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

A reviewer from the Associated Press described as "part hagiography" in late 2011, long before the affair was known, according to this BBC News article. See also this Rolling Stone review by Michael Hastings from January 2012, which describes the book as "such blatant, unabashed propaganda, it's as if the general has given up pretending there’s a difference between the press and his own public relations team".
Also note that we don't actually know that the relationship only began after Petraeus retired. They certainly have an incentive to claim that as it would have been a bigger problem if it had occurred before his retirement when he was commanding in Afghanistan and Broadwell's superior. But then that's just the word of two people who already have a history of lying about this relationship. --Saforrest (talk) 00:57, 20 November 2012 (UTC)Reply