Leave it to Paula Broadwell to explain David Petraeus -- and inadvertently underscore why the screechy response to their dalliance is so obtuse. "He's human at the end of the day" is how she put it last January during a Chicago interview for her Petraeus homage, All In.

During a lengthy conversation on WTTW, the primary PBS affiliate in Chicago, Broadwell was asked about the impact of Petraeus on the U.S. military. She argued that it would be on the next generation of leaders influenced by what she tagged as his "soldier-scholar-athlete" model.

He had displayed what "a transformational leader he is," she said, then pointedly adding this: "He's not without fault obviously. He's human at the end of the day."