Comey watch: Acolytes honor Comey the God!

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

Lester Holt, fashionably clueless: In this morning's New York Times, David Brooks provides some backwash from the decrees emitted by Comey the God.

We think you know what happened last week. Instead of simply reporting the FBI's recommendations to the Justice Department, Comey the God mounted the stage to tell the world what he thought.

He was breaking with standard procedure in a fairly remarkable way. In God-like fashion, he trashed the way that Hillary Clinton had broken with standard procedure!

In early May, we offered a warning—given his stiff-necked reputation for probity, Comey the God might do something like this. Last week, in typical fashion, the press corps bowed low to their new god and gulped down the things he had said.

As we noted yesterday, Dana Milbank performed the ceremony which made Comey a press corps god. In recent days, we've seen many guild members agreeing with everything Comey said—and with everything Comey suggested.

The voice of Comey the God has been heard throughout the land! In response, his acolytes tremble. Sacred offerings must be made. In this morning's New York Times, David Brooks offers this:

BROOKS (7/12/16): Blood was in the streets last week—victims of police violence in two cities and slain cops in another. America’s leadership crisis looked dire. The F.B.I. director’s statements reminded us that Hillary Clinton is willing to blatantly lie to preserve her career. Donald Trump, of course, lies continually and without compunction. It’s very easy to see this country on a nightmare trajectory.

Comey the God helped us remember that Clinton will blatantly lie!

In Saturday's Washington Post, Colbert King also bowed before Comey the God. In 2000, King trashed the appalling Candidate Gore right through to the end. Thanks to the revelations of Comey the God, he has said what follows, and many more things, about the vile Candidate Clinton:

KING (7/9/16): By using her own, unclassified email servers to communicate and store highly sensitive government information—as the FBI established—Clinton, as with [Henry Cabot] Lodge before her, placed personal interests above the obligation to properly protect classified information.

Was "highly sensitive government information" recklessly placed at risk? That's what Comey said and suggested; King goes on—and on, and on—from there.

Brooks and King are influential Establishment Washington figures. Ar the gruesome new Salon, one of the most incompetent professors in the nation has also swallowed the gruel of the god.

We often marvel at the fact that Sophia McClennen could possibly be a Penn State professor. In her latest remarkable effort, she throws in her lot with Brooks:

MCCLENNEN (7/12/16): That’s where we have to pause for a moment and assess how Clinton has actually responded to the email scandal. First of all, there is ample evidence she simply lied. A lot. We know that she originally stated she used a private server to allow her to email from one device. That has been proven false. We know that despite apologizing for poor judgment, she has consistently passed the blame onto others, suggesting that her colleagues were the ones who should have known the rules. We also know that she has really refused to take seriously the idea that sensitive and classified information was mishandled and that that information may have actually been leaked. Most importantly we have clear evidence that she has handled this mess with spin and rhetoric more than actual leadership.

Brooks tells us that Clinton blatantly lied. McClennen says she lied a lot.

As usual, there is little sense that McClennen has any idea what she's talking about. We routinely marvel at the fact that she's a full professor.

Candidate Gore was also anointed the world's biggest liar, of course. The children rushed to honor the gods who brought them that immortal decree. The treasured narrative has been in play for the past twenty-five years.

In the current case, the most remarkable bit of Comey-devotion may have been performed by NBC's Lester Holt. Astoundingly, the network star said this, last Friday, in an interview with Clinton:

HOLT (7/8/16): Madam Secretary, our time is short. If I could switch gears. This is the first chance we've had to chat since the head of the FBI called you out for careless handling of classified documents on your personal email server.

You said that none of the emails you sent were marked as classified. He said they were. You said it was a single device. He said there were multiple devices. You say you turned over all work- related material. He says you didn't.

Did he get it right? And if not, where did he get it wrong?

Good God! By the time Holt spoke with Clinton, the facts about the highlighted matter had become quite clear.

Holt didn't seem to have heard. But so it goes when these puzzling life-forms come face to face with their gods.

Did Clinton blatantly lie, a lot, the way the acolytes now assert? Tomorrow, we'll start with Holt's remarkable questions, the fruit of Comey the God.