The GOP's shiny new object

>>> the petraeus files are getting thick and gets more bizarre. conservatives are deshed to make it into a full-blown obama administration scandal. it involving his successor in afghanistan, marine corps general john allen . they both have kexzs to jill kelly who does volunteer work with military families. kelley alerted a friend of hers at the fbi after receiving harassing e-mails. them call from paul broadwell, petraeus 's biographer. they admitted to having an fair. that affair led to hez rez mags. they discovered potentially inappropriate communications between jill kelley of am tm pa and general allen . they reviewed 30,000 pages of documents including e-mails over the course of two years, but found no wrongdoing by general allen . the fbi turned it over to the pentagon, and the pentagon has ordered its own investigation. the married general allen denies an improper relationship with kelley . he's currently president obama 's choice for supreme allied commander of nato forces in europe. that nomination is on hold. as nbc news reports the president learned of the problems on friday, the same day he accepted petraeus 's resignation. that hasn't stopped the con spearary theorists over on fox news.

>> who knew about the affair before the leak, and why didn't they speak up?

>> the idea that obama would not be told by coincidence two or three days after the election absolutely beyond belief.

>> you have to suspend disbelief.

>> it appears that the white house is lying again just as it was lying about benghazi .

>> how could the fbi pick up something like this in the spring and take months to figure it out?

>> we're supposed to believe that an affair involving the hetd of the ia was never discuss.

>> did the sex scandal influence benghazi ? why president obama didn't know about it? so if he did know about it, there were months that went by. i mean, eric holder at least knew about it.

>> if holder new it. when obama smelt it holder dealt it.

>> eric holder didn't talk to one of his closest friends? that's barack obama .

>> i'm joined by karen finney, former communications director for the dnc. a lot it to unpack here. everybody on that network happens to believe there is some huge, shiny object the right wing should be focused on totally. this is what they need and want. your thoughts on the narrative out there, that this is some big conspiracy and cover-up?

>> you know, poppycock. how about that? this is a network that was convinced, convinced that mitt romney was going to win last tuesday. take it with a mound of salt. i think it's pretty clear and i wrote in my column for "the hill" about this this week. from the beginning they were more interested in figuring out how to use this to attack eric holder and the obama administration broadly? what's similar the way they deal with the benghazi situation, there really are significant, important questions that need to be asked. we shouldn't -- we need to separate that out from what is also just a very sad but all too common story about a man getting brought down by, you know, being distracted by a woman.

>> the white house is supporting general allen , although his nomination of supreme allied commander is put on hold. what do you make of that?

>> i think that's appropriate. there is an investigation going on at dod. let me speak more broadly. i actually talked to folks at the department of justice . the thing we have to remember is what we know now is not what they knew when they started the investigation. when they started the investigation, they didn't know what they had, and as facts unfolded, they decided to take sort of the next step. from everything we know at this point, people went up their chain of command , which ended with going to clapper who went to the white house and then to the president. the last interview actually with paula broadwell was the friday before the election. in terms of the timing and all of this kind of stuff, you know, again, i think that people who want to seek conspiracy theories will find them.

>> the fact the white house is supporting allen , they must know that he is in the clear, and they are in safe territory because this could be a very dangerous position if there was some kind of wrongdoing that would be uncovered later on.

>> you know, ed, i can tell you from my own experience working in the clinton administration , i take a slightly different view. that is that they -- he can't -- it would not be prudent to withdraw the nomination until you know wheat the facts are.

>> they put it on hold.

>> it's on hold while this investigation playing itself out, and that seems like the appropriate thing to do. we take it seriously and we're going to investigate. you know, i think it's important the president has made it clear he still stands by allen .

>> i said in my opening to this story there's something bizarre here. here we go. the fbi agent that jill kelley first contacted reportedly sent shirtless photos of himself to jill kelley .

>> yes.

>> he's now a subject of an ethic inquiry over it that. the agent also contacted eric cantor about the investigation, because he believed the case had stalled to protect the president of the united states .

>> right.

>> partisanship taking place inside the fbi ? is that a red flag ?

>> it is a red flag , and i mean, it certainly sounds like it. it certainly is disturbing and not, obviously, within -- there's a lot there that's wrong in terms of the protocols there. you know, i guess there's a question to be asked in terms of what eric cantor and i believe there's another republican, why gert, who was notified. they passed the information on to the fbi here. there's definitely some real questions about what was the motivation of that fbi agent in reporting that.

>> what it comes down with the house and senate intel committee going to vet all of this with hearings, we're going to find out that the right wing is early terribly wrong or they were onto something? that's the way it's going to come down.

>> and that maybe the investigation and everything that happened happened the way -- just as a reminder, the protocols in place at the department of justice , he reminded everybody of that under george bush .

>> yes, he did. karen finney, thank you. there's a lot more in the next half hour of "the ed show." stay right with us.

>> is traditional america gone for good?

>> the mayor of cable news cannot believe white men are losing their grip on power. mike and joan will break down his latest tirade.

>> mr. obama won the woman vote, blacks and asians but the hispanic vote really nailed romney. it was an entitlement vote this year.

>> get up cringekriss kringle.

>> i'm santa claus .

>> consumers are turning up the heat on the donald. i'll have the details ahead. and southern american states want to split off and form their own country following the re-election