jim comey and his apologia [x-posted from my blogspot]
I finished reading James Comey's new book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. I normally don't buy into publicity stunts like this. For instance, I resisted buying Fire and Fury, because I didn't want to give money to a guy for telling us what we already knew - that Trump's a tool -, and the juicier bits of gossip, whether true or not, were something we would all find out about anyway, whether or not we bought the book. But I wanted to buy Comey's book, because the poor guy needed to make a living after he was fired from the FBI, and so I did, fully aware that I was buying into the narrative of a man who had every reason to show himself in a good light. But the narrative we have been hearing so far is that of Hillary Clinton and Democrats who haven't been able to get over their loss.
To be clear, I don't necessarily admire Comey, but I also don't think he was wrong in doing what he did leading up to the 2016 elections. Hillary may or may not have won if Comey hadn't reopened the investigation into her emails. (Have people forgotten about Russia's hand in all this?) But as bad as the alternative (Trump) has been, I still don't think the outcome of an election is something that the FBI should consider during an investigation. Comey repeatedly emphasizes in his book and in his television appearances, where he resembles a traumatized puppy trying to get on with his life, that the FBI doesn't play for one team or the other, and nothing that Comey has done suggests that this hasn't been the case.
But of course, Hillary Clinton still goes around telling people she felt "shivved" by Comey. When it comes to deflecting blame, Hillary is second only to Trump. If anything, the country should be furious that Hillary was such a piss-poor candidate that she lost to Trump. Any other year she would have been the worst candidate on the ballot. If anything, her losing the election was a blessing to her legacy, because now people will forever remember a hypothetical Hillary presidency as one of the great presidencies that never were. Had she become president, her name would have gone direct to the trash heap of history, novelty of being the first woman president notwithstanding, alongside that of other uncharismatic venal hawks who have adorned the Oval Office during the latter half of the twentieth century, from Nixon all the way up to Bill "Whipped Cream" Clinton. Hillary would have been a Democratic version of George W. Bush - unpalatable any other year. (Recall how people are now wishing Ol' Dubya had been president again.)
That said, I thought Comey's book promised more than it delivered. This may partly be because he couldn't reveal classified information. Sure, there were a few interesting episodes, some glimpses into the workings of the FBI and its place in the power hierarchy of Washington D.C., but in the main the book read like a long-winded apologia. "Hey, I'm one of the good guys!" Comey seems to be saying. He says things like, "I feel mildly nauseated that I might have had an impact on the election," in his book and in his television appearances, trying to extort sympathy from the public by making himself appear "only human" (this is also why he says folksy things like "oh, lordy"), and he writes about Obama in glowing terms in order to ingratiate himself with the Democrats, now that the Republicans have disowned him. He peppers in the occasional trite maxim about leadership, common sense to most people, in order to distract from the fact that the book is little more than a catharsis for him and to satisfy his publishers, after having been traduced for over a year by the media and people from both political parties. Nothing wrong with that. But the reader should be aware that this what he's going to get with this book.