Hell hath no fury like a mistress scorned. So seriously, you guys, stop having affairs. If you are a fictional character in a popular 1987 film starring Glenn Close, then your mistress will boil your child’s bunny rabbit and then you’ll have to kill her in your own bathtub. Nobody wants that.
If you’re a real person with a respected military career and a high-powered position — say, the director of the CIA — your mistress will send threatening e-mails to your rumored other other woman and then you’ll be forced to resign in disgrace. Nobody wants that, either!
Fortunately for the everyday layperson, we get the opportunity to sit back and watch this all unfold like a Lifetime movie or a particularly unrealistic episode of “Homeland.” That means this will dominate the news cycle for at least the next week, and the most creative of news outlets (us) will squeeze every last pun out of the situation that they (we) can.
Here are the best headlines and jokes so far about the Petraeus-Broadwell affair so far:
5. The New York Post took a 15-year old joke and plastered it across the cover of its Sunday issue, complete with Petraeus as an Austin Powers look-alike, surrounded by four Brigitte Bardot lookalikes. The Post gets points for a topical James Bond tie-in (since the latest film came out this weekend) but it’s just too ludicrous. If this were 1997, we would be high-fiving the Post’s entire newsroom. But it’s not, so we won’t.
4. On Saturday, the New York Daily News took a simple but clever approach to its front page with a simple acronym. We admire he Daily News’ restraint here, and are currently thinking of filthier acronyms as we speak.
3. Just a day after running a tame headline, the Daily News ran with something slightly more risque Sunday, along with what Tolstoy might even agree is a pretty good pun.
3. Not to toot our own horn, but we’re going to toot our own horn. This list wouldn’t be fair and balanced without mentioning this Daily Caller headline.
2. Let’s all give a round of applause to the writers at “Saturday Night Live” for their inevitable, slightly obvious, yet equally glorious joke about the affair during the latest “Weekend Update” segment.
Host Seth Meyers said:
“CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus regisned Friday after it was revealed he was having an affair with the woman who wrote his biography, ‘All In.’ Of course, when they first started working on the book it was called ‘Just the Tip.'”
1. The Post’s frontpage on Saturday was more clever and less ridiculous than the one it ran Sunday. It was the first of its kind and it is to be admired.
(All images via the Newseum)