A Review:
Peggy Noonan,
What Comey Told Us
About Donald Trump
by
R.E. Prindle
This is a
review of the Comey/Trump Affair around Peggy Noonan’s WSJ article in the Wall
Street Journal of 6/10-11/17.
First let’s
put the Comey Affair into its set and setting.
The current Pres., Donald Trump has caused the greatest political uproar
since the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt too was hated and vilified by what
he called the ‘economic royalists’ that now hate Trump; different faces but
same class. Former Pres. Obama prior to
the election stated that Donald Trump would never be president. Trump’s political adversary, Hillary Clinton,
thought her election in the bag only to find that the triumph went to her
rival.
The news was
crushing for these people who considered themselves an elite appointed by God
to do His work. Looking down on Trump’s
base that they had given many derogative names such as the Deplorables,
ignoramuses and whatever they now found themselves led by a man they despised
personally who was the leader of this despicable mob of unwashed peasants, to
use an antique term.
Their
disappointed rage was so terrible that many government employees quit their
jobs while there was a near universal refusal
by the remaining to cooperate in any way with the new President. They put on their pussy hats and through a
snit in the very streets.
Comey
himself had a very questionable role in the election releasing potentially damaging
information concerning Hillary Clinton.
The timing was suspicious.
Clinton was accused of much more damning activities than Trump is being
accused of but that has been swept under the rug. She is a Liberal.
So, while investigations
have been going on for months and months now with absolutely no show of
conclusive evidence, or indeed, any evidence at all, Congress chose to call a
hearing at which the star witness was the FBI head who had already come up with
nothing hence had nothing to report and in fact reported nothing.
So, really,
what we have here is a show trial after the Soviet fashion. Also what we have here are essentially
fictional narratives meant to amuse and entertain. Just before his appearance, Mr. Comey
released publicly a seven page propaganda paper he titled: Statement For The Record: Senate Select Committee On Intelligence.
Mr. Comey
opens his short story, for that’s what it is,
with the words:
I was asked
to testify today to describe to you of interactions with President-elect and
President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my
conversations with the President, but to the best of my recollections I have tried
to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.
Reading this
one comes to the conclusion that this meeting has no other relevance than
perhaps a discussion of the Pres.’ personal habits. Trumpian curiosities. In other words, the Committee is
frivolous. Isn’t the real intent of the
hearing to see if the Pres. is somehow criminally lacking. Comey is the man who is conducting this
investigation to find Trump criminally liable for something, anything; the
Committee doesn’t care what just so long as they can get rid of him. They think his election is a fluke and
therefore doesn’t count.
And then
Comey advises that he has carefully edited his testimony. To give his edits credibility, apparently
knowing that one day he was to be called to testify something about the Pres. he
‘took notes.’ Apparently Comey’s conversation with the Pres. was so far beyond
Comey’s experience, and he is a man who should have seen everything, that:
To ensure accuracy
I began to type (the conversation) up on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside
Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting.
Hmm. An FBI
vehicle outside Trump Tower? Was Comey
wired? Was the FBI vehicle a
surveillance truck? Hmm. Does the FBI have tapes of this meeting. That might be illegal.
Sure, there
are enough weasel words in those comments that mean Comey has effectively said
nothing. He has determined what the
Committee wants to hear and presumably selected
the most juicy passages throwing the rest of the edits on the cutting
room floor. I wonder if Mr. Comey has
ever been to law school where he would learn to talk in circles?
Now, Mr.
Comey works direct for Mr. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s personally selected Attorney
General and Mr. Sessions reports directly to Pres. Trump. Whatever information that Mr. Comey uncovers
should have been made aware to AG Sessions.
Was it? And, if not, why
not? Sessions in his turn should have reported
to the Pres.
But Mr.
Comey does not speak through his boss Sessions.
No. He says instead:
The IC
(Intelligence Community) thought it important for a variety of reasons, to
alert the incoming President to the existence
of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified.
Unquote.
I see, what
we have is water cooler talk, a rumor jest and smirk. In fact, the story that Trump pissed on a
prostitute in Moscow several years ago.
One imagines the Committee members smiling inwardly at their recollection
of the rumor.
As morally
reprehensible as pissing on prostitutes may be, as a sexual perversion it is
fairly common, even has a name: Golder
Shower. And when it comes to minor
sexual perversions, let the innocent stand up.
Wow, isn’t
the country overjoyed by Trump’s exposure. (smirk, smirk, allusion intended.)
Now, perhaps
I’m wrong but the FBI’s jurisdiction doesn’t extend to Russia. CIA maybe, but not the FBI. Yet, Mr. Comey was asked, not by AG Sessions
but the Director of National Intelligence to deliver these remarks to the
Pres. ‘because the material implicated
the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. Oh.
And Mr. Comey
said, holding up his right hand, this is the carefully edited selective truth,
so help me God.
So, then,
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ examines Mr. Comey’s selected and edited
testimony. Now, remember, Comey is no
callow youth. As Peggy describes him:
Whatever Mr.
Comey’s reputation, and it’s mixed- an intelligent accomplished professional who is plenty slick; state-of-the-art Beltway
operator with an image of integrity, yet trailed with suspicions of slight
smarm- he’s a careful man.
Then Peg
quotes Comey’s relation of the face to face meeting on January 27, 2017 a week
into Trump’s term of office when it might be said he is feeling his way in his
new surroundings. Already under extreme
attack, rioting in the streets, hateful MSM media coverage, Trump knows it’s going to be a tough
haul. Comey has had a questionable record
prior to the election. Sitting on this
side of the screen I had to ask myself what Comey was doing? What was his agenda? Which side was he on? His own?
Wouldn’t it
be reasonable then for Trump to want to get a feel for where Comey was coming
from? We have Comey’s version of what he’s
seeing in Trump but we don’t have Trump’s idea of what he’s seeing in Comey’s
behavior. The other side always gives
balance. What Trump does already know is
that the civil service is up in arms against him, rabid Democratic Senators and
Congressmen are obstructing every move he makes, if he jaywalks the MSM reports
it as a major crime. So is Comey working
for him or against him?
The Pres.
levels with Comey, according to Comey’s notes written down later when he has
time to compose a narrative, the Pres. says:
‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’
Right! Who doesn’t? Damn right, he doesn’t need a smiling
back-stabber; which is Comey, he wants to know, staring at him intently to
capture his reaction.
This man of
the world, Comey, this state-of-the-art Beltway operator, is struck dumb by
Trump’s desire to know if he is going to back stab him or not. Well, my God, Comey is speaking to Trump, the
Liberals idea of the reincarnation of
Adolf Hitler. Why wouldn’t Comey
come to the conclusion that Trump was asking for a Hitlerian loyalty oath,
hey? It doesn’t seem he was to me, but
what was Comey’s reaction to the simple statement of fact. Why, Comey this Beltway operator was struck
dumb. This so far exceeded anything
Comey had seen or heard deep in the Swamp of DC: ‘I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial
expression (No! He was a deer caught in the headlights) in any way during the awkward silence (getting
a little purple here) that followed. We
simply looked at each other in silence.’
Does anyone
with experience and sense believe Comey’s reaction? I don’t.
Trump didn’t ask for criminal collusion as Comey implies, he wanted to
know if Comey was a back stabber. All
Comey had to say was I do my job without fear or favor from anyone. I will deal with you with integrity. I will not be influenced by the hatred that I
know surrounds you. I am not your man
but I will protect your administration from any unlawful assaults. You will have no reason to find fault with
me.’
Bingo! That’s
it. What does Comey do, he says and I
mean I do not believe him, that he froze in the headlights. Some Beltway operator.
Peggy runs
through the right or wrong arguments through the rest of the article. Then gives away the farm. She says:
Then again,
a conservative intellectual with small town roots wrote, during the testimony,
that he thought this might be a break point, a moment when Trump’s supporters
would listen close and think he’s not so much like them, and not so different
from the swamp he means to drain. I
myself don’t know.
Let me help you,
Peg, didn’t you describe Comey as smarmy and slick at the beginning of your
article? Didn’t you say he was a
state-of-the-art Beltway operator? Do
you not think us small town rubes saw that immediately? Trump is doing his best against terrific odds
and that is clear to everyone but Trump’s enemies. No, we are not breaking, the deal hasn’t gone
down, he may not survive the beatdown but he would still be a better man than
all the people in the Swamp for all that.