0 epic effect in his book called "the operators." after president obama's first commander of the afghanistan war was fired, after his second commander was fired, president obama turned to the most high profile military leader in the country, general david petraeus, to become his third afghanistan war commanding general. that tenure in afghanistan lasted a year. as the president surged tens of thousands of more americans into that country, ultimately tripling the number of troops who were there when he first took office, that year at the front ended for general petraeus when he came back to washington to become head of the cia. a job from which he unexpectedly and suddenly resigned last week saying he had been having an extra-marital affair. meanwhile, yet another confirmation hearing is due this week for yet another new before this latest hulabaloo, he is going to be replaced with planning well under way for year '13 and '14 and something different they won't call a war but has americans there in year as 15 going on indefinitely. john allen successor to the disgraced petraeus and mcchrystal and fired mckiernan. he remains in command in afghanistan where americans are risking their necks for a country that has not in a decade paid as much attention to the war as it is paying to the sexual misconduct and disgrace of one of the many, many, many, many, many, many men who have led it. joining us is frank rich, noshz magazine's writer at large. >> great to be here, rachel. >> we have went through a presidential election in which we pretty much did not talk about afghanistan. there's new interest in our military commanders there because of the details surrounding general petraeus and these e-mails from general allen. is this inevitable, and can this be a way to turn country's attention back to the war? >> well, it would seem if you turned this long-running war, which i think is really off the public radar screen. it wasn't only not discussed in the campaign, in the debates, it didn't register in the polls like we're not at war, except for the people actually fighting it. to turn it into the "real housewives of tampa" may be the way to sell it or get people interested. i suspect the moment this is resolved in way or another, people will go back to ignoring the war. >> is there any way -- i guess the parallel question other than public interest is political interest. you have seen in congress right now, including some of the republicans returning to congress in the house they still control, a real softening of attitudes on the issue of how long the afghanistan war should go on. i feel like if there's anybody who wants to push on this door, they will find it's an open door and there could be political support for leaving sooner than we're planning. >> i think so. i thought it was true before the election. i felt romney was giving signals and even at times almost stating that it's good we're getting out. that shows that kind of softness. who really in this country is pushing for extending it? lindsey graham, john mccain and the departing joe lieberman. i don't know of any other voices in the national political scene who are saying we can't leave. we have to do as long as it takes and stay there forever. there's no public support for it. >> because of this scandal, i just -- i mean, one of the things that you hear from veterans groups, that people outside the military i don't think seem all that comfortable talking about is the personal toll of these long deployments over multiple years on people's personal lives. young veterans bemoan the rate of divorce among veterans. how difficult it is to sustain a family and relationships. i don't know why we think it's easier for top commanders than your average infantry man trying to hold his family together. is this potentially -- we tend to defer to the military's own judgment on these things. we ask the commanders on the ground for their own opinion, but is this not another occasion for civilians to say, this is done in our name. the military isn't fighting this war because it wants to, because they want us to be fighting this. could this be an occasion for us to say we're asking the military to do too much for too long now. this is not personally sustainable? >> i'd like to believe it's the case. we went through the stop leave and multiple tours of duty during iraq, which was so many strains, mental, physical, marital on the people fighting and their families. now this is at a high level, possibly a dramatization of the strains even in the privileged part of the military complex. i just -- the public is not engaged. it's 1% of the country that's fighting this war. most people sadly don't know people involved in the effort. so it's out of sight, out of mind. this will maybe cast a spotlight, but will it be forgotten as we return to the fiscal cliff or whatever we return to next month or next week. >> in terms of the petraeus affair as it were itself, the story is definitely getting more sorted as days go by, which i think is why it continues to hold public attention so far. as it is getting more sorted, though, it is just getting more personal, or do you actually see it getting more political now? is this at this point a scandal or a tragedy? >> i think it's just a tragedy. i mean, based on what we know now, it seems to be there's some things about it that are scandalous. i don't understand how a general could be involved in 20 or 30,000 pages worth of e-mail, like allen, how is he doing his job? >> very short -- >> very short but 20,000 to 30,000. my god. i do think that it's really more -- so far it's the level of personal tragedy, and i think everyone understands that. there was an attempt by republicans to try to connect it to benghazi, to aaccuse obama of a coverup before the election as if it had been known before the election it would have had any effect. it wouldn't have. i think the political efforts are now over or seem to be subsiding, and so we're left with what this country really loves, a good, sordid sex scandal. >> on the issue of benghazi, the president is trying to put together his second term cabinet. there's been a lot of talk where john kerry is going to go. whether he would be secretary of state or defense. there's this question about whether susan rice might be elevated to secretary of state. the republicans, of course, tried to turn it into a national scandal that she commented after the benghazi attack and said that at that point best intelligence indicated it might have something to do with that protest about the film. the intelligence community later changed its mind saying they don't think it's related. the republicans have tried to hang her out to dry on that subject. do you think that's over, or if she gets the secretary of state nomination, it's a real hurdle for her? >> i don't think it's a real hurdle if she gets it. frankly, i don't think republicans want to go up against a very distinguished african-american woman in public life with no grounds whatsoever. getting back to kerry, kerry, who actually did serve, could be and has been in the past a great voice for what you're talking about for taking care of our military, taking care of our veterans, dealing with these issues in whatever big post he ends up in, he certainly did it as a senator, that would be a big plus. >> connecting with the country's concerns to the war that we're still fighting that we prefer not to talk about. it's a big job, but somebody has to do it. thanks for being here. appreciate it. >> news ahead on liberal seeming things that happen in utah. also, election results still due to come in. next, president obama's mini summit today with a who's who of liberal america on purpose. that's next. 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