The Petraeus scandal has taken a terrifying turn. The ever-widening circle of dark and shifty characters involved in the CIA sexcapade now includes figures associated with the Lincoln Group, the secretive Iraq and Afghanistan propaganda contractor famous for paying Iraqi newspapers to run fake pro-American news stories. Which means that it also extends to a furtive, enigmatic, foreign-born media titan whose closely held firm is busily extending its tendrils into the national consciousness: Gawker Media founder Nicholas Guido Denton. Let me explain.

As with most art, each iteration of an image reflects less and less of what the original work was trying to convey, but then at some point it reaches a level of saturation and becomes something else entirely. A statement on the statement, if you will. Fox's attempt at the flowchart guide to the Petraeus Affair is perhaps the most telling: don't even try to understand this thing.

Since CIA director David Petraeus resigned on Friday over an extramarital affair uncovered by the FBI, the story has shifted from John Le Carré espionage novel to Vince Flynn right-wing thriller to misanthropic Coen Brothers farce — adding along the way more characters, more improbable situations, and best of all, more sexually-charged emails.

Looking to cheat on your spouse but worried about damning your immortal soul to swim in a lake of fire for all eternity by breaking the commandment that expressly prohibits committing adultery? Good news!

This scandal just won't quit, will it? The Petraeus affair, which already took a turn for the weird earlier tonight when news broke that an FBI agent was emailing shirtless pictures of himself to Jill Kelley, has now expanded to include another high-ranking military official, General John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. And NATO troops in Afghanistan. According to a senior U.S. defense official, the FBI had uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 "potentially inappropriate" pages of communication between Allen and Kelley, Petraeus's alleged other other woman and the subject of the shirtless FBI agent's affection.

In a new, strange twist to the ongoing Petraeus scandal, it turns out the FBI agent who started the investigation sent topless photos of himself to Jill Kelley, Petraeus's alleged other other woman. The agent in question was apparently a friend of Kelley's and the person she turned turned to after she received the "threatening" emails from Paula Broadwell, Petraeus's first mistress.

Look into the history of Paula Broadwell's Wikipedia page and there's not much to it before last Friday. That's the day Republican golden boy and former CIA director David Petraeus resigned as the nation's top spy amid allegations he was cheating on his wife with Broadwell, his biographer. Broadwell's page was so lackluster, in fact, that in February, one Wikipedia editor, Bgwhite, requested to delete it entirely, saying Broadwell was not notable.

Among the many odd, swirling facts surrounding the unfolding David Petraeus scandal: Jill Kelley, the longtime friend of the former CIA director who reportedly went to the FBI complaining of harassing emails from Petraeus' mistress Paula Broadwell, has reacted to the mess by bringing out the scandal equivalent of heavy artillery. She's hired DC superlawyer Abbe Lowell and crisis PR specialist Judy Smith—despite the fact that the FBI has concluded its investigation and there are no criminal allegations on the table.

Here's Paula Broadwell, biographer-turned-mistress of CIA director David Petraeus, at the University of Denver in October, answering a question about the 9/11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. "Now I don't know if a lot of you heard this," she says "but the CIA annex [to the consulate] had actually — had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back."

Yesterday we told you that the only reason the Petraeus scandal came to light was because his mistress Paula Broadwell was sending harassing emails to another woman. Thanks to an AP report, we now know who this woman is.

If you're General David Petraeus, you're probably not having a very relaxing Sunday morning. And if General Petraeus was tuning into Fox News this morning, he's probably having a bit less of anything resembling a good morning.

What, you thinking leading the intelligence agency of the most powerful country in the world, and having a boyish grin and a crop of sandy brown hair is only good enough to get you one mistress? The Washington Post fills in some more details on what led to Petraeus's Spyfall, and it looks like it's getting a little Fatal Attraction-y up in here.

13. Ground Truth
12. Washington and Back
11. Transition
10. Mask of Command
9. High Stakes
8. True Believers
7. Drawdown
6. Lines of Operation
5. Results, Boy
4. Still All In
3. Clear, Hold and Build
2. Screaming Eagles
1. Anaconda

Heh. Well played. The Daily News went with a lame acronym, while the Washington Post, which I don't think even wants to win the tabloid war anymore, chooses the stuffy "Citing affair, Petraeus steps down from CIA."

In the July 13th edition of Klosterman's The Ethicist advice column for the New York Times, an anonymous reader wrote in seeking advice about an affair his wife was having with a "government executive" whose job "is seen worldwide as a demonstration of American leadership." The anonymous reader went on to praise the government executive as "gracious" and "absolutely the right person for the job." He then asked if he should acknowledge the affair or let it continue until the project succeeds. Sounds like the government executive could hold a position like, say, the director of the CIA, right? In other words, did Paula Broadwell's husband know about her affair with David Petraeus and then turn to, of all people, Chuck Klosterman for advice? Maybe!

Earlier today, news broke that David Petraeus was resigning because an affair he'd had with Paula Broadwell, the co-author of his biography, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, a book title about which there are no easy jokes. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was an FBI investigation into the use of Petraeus's Gmail that brought the affair to public knowledge.

Slate confirmed this just moments ago, that Paula Broadwell, co-author of All In: The Education of General David, was the not-so-mysterious other woman who forced his resignation. According to Slate, the two were long rumored to be chummy and often went on five mile jogs together, but Petraeus was "so square" that it was all dismissed as scuttlebutt. Nope.

David Petraeus, the national-security golden-boy who rose from commander of CENTCOM to head of the CIA (and was often mentioned as a potential future GOP presidential candidate), has reportedly resigned, citing an extramarital affair.

It sure seems unlikely that David Petraeus, the married director of the C.I.A., would be seducing Taiwanese engineers on Skype in order to cash his, uh, paychecks from the NATO operation in Libya, doesn't it? But try telling that to Liu Shuzhen, who is pretty insistent that she and Petraeus are getting married, any day now.

The Senate confirmed Gen. David Petraeus as CIA director today, 94-0. Meanwhile, the Justice Department will "drop criminal investigations of most CIA officials" who tortured people. Is there a quid pro quo here, or just two independent, predictable things?