Week of 05/15/2017

Comey’s Career Curtain Was A Long Time Coming
– by David Matthews 2

I am sick of scripts.  Especially the political ones.

When you have the truth and you have actual facts and a simple understanding of how things are, that really should be enough for people.  You should not have to fabricate a whole narrative just to appease an extreme point of view.  It’s like using a bazooka instead of a hammer.

Case in point: the ouster of FBI Director James Comey, which finally happened just last week (as of this column’s posting date).

Now the Cult of Donald Trump have been trying to find ways to justify Comey’s termination that doesn’t make their cult leader, President Trump, look like the vain, petty, and narcissistic thug that he’s revealing himself to be.  Good luck with that, Trumpets.

But on the other side, the liberals are going bananas over a script they’ve been manufacturing about Comey’s termination somehow being connected to Trump’s ties with Russia.  The suggestion is that Comey was getting way too close to finding impeachable proof of collusion.  They’re trying to liken this to the “Saturday Night Massacre” of 1973, when President Richard Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox and “accepted the resignations” of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus over recordings connected to the Watergate scandal.

Come on guys!  Do you even remember who Comey is?

This is the same guy that delivered the “October Surprise” of the 2016 Farce, announcing that they were re-opening the email scandal that plagued Hillary Clinton!  Remember that?  The singular surprise that Hillary, to this day, claims ruined her campaign.  Yeah, *that* Comey.  And then he turned around and said that there was nothing new to reveal and “re-closed” the matter.

Now imagine what would have happened if Hillary did win the Farce.  Do you really think that she would keep Comey around after that?  Do you really think that Comey would feel any safer under hypothetical-President Hillary Clinton than he did under actual-President Trump?  She’s probably want him gone before the inauguration, and if she didn’t have him removed, then I could even see then-outgoing-President Barack Obama doing the job for her.

So, really, what’s with the drama?

And, for the record, *I* was the one that speculated all the way back in October, even before the election, that Comey’s career was on the line for pulling that stunt. 

I can even understand why Comey felt “obligated” to disclose this information now.  It’s really a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation.  If he stayed silent until after the election it would have unleashed a GOP hyper-tantrum.  But that doesn’t change what he did when he did.  If Hillary wins, Comey is fired.  No ifs-ands-or-buts.  He’s toast.  If Trump wins, Trump would probably fire Comey because Comey didn’t deliver the first time around, and, again, the nature of Washington is that this email thing will also blow over, so Trump would then feel obligated to fire Comey again.  Can you fire someone twice?  Trump would find a way to do that.

(From “Quick Thoughts of the 2016 Farce”, October 31, 2016)

Yes, that was me.  And we find that Trump only needed to fire him once.

Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” was nefarious because Archibald Cox was not part of the Department of Justice, and therefore not under Nixon’s control.  He was a special prosecutor, independent of the Executive Branch.  And that was the reason why his firing was considered unconstitutional and an impeachable offense.  Comey was far from an independent administrator. 

Sorry Dems, but you’re throwing a tantrum for the wrong reason.

Let’s get brutally honest here... James Comey was pretty much operating on borrowed time.  He pissed off the Democrats over the email issue, and then he pissed off Trump for not following through with getting Hillary arrested over it, and then turning around and contradicting him over Russia inquiries.  Trump only needed an excuse, even a crappy one, do to what everyone figured would happen anyway.

And, apparently, the only person who didn’t know his career was toast... was Comey himself.  Back in March, he told a cybersecurity convention “You’re stuck with me for about another six-and-a-half years.” 

To quote Bugs Bunny... “What a Maroon!”

But, seriously, why the phony mama-drama, Dems?  You hated him just as much as everyone else.  You wanted him gone just like everyone else.  So why the hysterics?  Why craft a phony script to paint the man that you wanted gone as a victim of something other than his own stupidity?

And... let’s get back to that Russia thing...

Do you really and truly believe that James Comey would somehow find that smoking gun that you think exists that would unseat the Cult of Trump from the White House?  He couldn’t find one when it came to Hillary Clinton, even after she left public office.  Do you *really* think that he’d be any better finding dirt on a sitting President of the United States, never mind a narcissist like Donald Trump?

Even if James Comey had eyewitness statements, bank records, photographs, audio and video recordings, and dug up the bodies of all the people killed and buried over this possible Trump-Russia connection, odds are he still wouldn’t do anything about it.  Because the currency in Washington is power, and Comey would know from his distant predecessor, J. Edgar Hoover, that having that kind of knowledge is far more valuable when it is kept secret.  And if Comey really had something dirty on Trump by now, then he would not have lost his job.

The sad reality that we all need to understand is that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is not a “separate and independent investigatory agency” as some people have tried to convince us it is.  It is an extension of the Department of Justice, which is run by the Attorney General of the United States, which is appointed by the President of the United States with the “consent” of the United States Senate.  In other words, it is an extension of the Cult of Trump.  It cannot hold Trump to account for his actions.  Only Congress can do that, and it is currently in the iron grip of the GOP.

If the Democrats really wanted an independent investigatory party that could look into matters of the Executive Branch, then they should have kept the Office of Independent Council alive.  You would think that after Watergate that they would have remembered why it was needed.  But I suppose we should add short-sightedness to that party’s many failings along with political impotence and catastrophic incompetence.

Meanwhile, don’t worry too much about Citizen Comey now that he’s been fired from Trump.  He still gets a cushy golden parachute that we all paid for.  He will no doubt be entertaining job offers from political think-tanks, lobbying firms, law schools, media companies, and, of course, book deals and offers to go on extremely over-valued speaking tours.  Because that’s also how it works in Washington.  Nobody goes broke there.  Well, except for us common folk.