The story of David Petraeus, a capable but self-obsessed general, and Paula Broadwell, an ambitious but brazen biographer who ingratiated herself into his bed, carries three important lessons. First, pity a woman who gets herself and the general exposed on account of electronic mail about the affair sent to another woman. If she needed to talk about it, she should have done it in person. Second, pity a government that would oust a capable general on account of an inconsequential extramarital affair. A mild reprimand by his superior, in this case the president, should be sufficient. And third, pity a society in which private communication is actually public unbeknownst even to its elite. They should have known that carrier pigeons have been available since antiquity.