With so many shocking things happening these days under President Donald Trump, it should come to no one as stranger than fiction that ousted FBI director James Comey is urging all Americans to vote for Democrats in the next midterm elections. Comey tweeted last night:
Such a suggestion is at once high-minded and welcome. But we must pause to attempt to understand where such a thinking is coming from. For Comey, let’s not forget, retains Republican blood in his veins despite his growing frustration with the spineless men and women who currently overpopulate his party. I suspect the erstwhile director is wrestling with many demons in his mind. I guess I would not be too wrong if I identified three.
First, Comey’s new-found affection for a Democratic majority in Congress springs from a mindset that wants to save the best democratic system in the world from utter perdition at the hands of a malevolent demagogue after more than 200 years of successful experiment. Comey wants us to know how much he truly cares for the weal of the Republic. He knows full well America’s democracy is only a step away from slipping into the abyss, and that it is only the next major elections, and not the Robert Mueller probe, that can save it. I agree.
The former FBI director’s cri de coeur is steeped in guilt, but one which he can’t even bring himself to confess because, like the man he helped elect through his utter refusal to listen to wise counsel, he’s full of hubris and I-can-do-no-wrong mentality. Despite what is plain to the public as to his unconscionable decision to resume the Hillary Clinton email probe so close to the last election, Comey still wouldn’t admit he made a mistake of the worst order.
Finally, I suspect Comey pines for revenge against the man who kicked him out of his job so ignominiously. Comey, without a doubt, coveted his job. You could glean that from his several public remarks about his job and how he looked forward to serving out the rest of his term. The gentleman never imagined he could be separated from it before the remainder of his tenure. But then it happened ---- and he can’t seem to forgive Trump for it in the time since. In addition to saving America’s democracy from destruction under Trump, Comey wants a Democratic Congress that would not only make life hell for Trump, but perhaps oust him from office disgracefully almost the same way the president treated him. If Clinton were president, Comey would still be director. And Comey knows this.
As I once wrote in my blog: “No, I can’t pretend to have sympathy for James Comey. I have no time for crocodile piety over President Donald Trump’s abrupt and ignominious termination of his job as director of the FBI. The damage that Comey did to America’s democracy by swinging the last presidential election to Trump through his questionable handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe, is worse than any injustice he may have suffered at the hands of Trump.”
More than a year after, I still can’t bring myself to sympathize with Comey over his fate. Trump was right to let him go, although for the wrong reason, and inappropriately executed, too. However, I do applaud his constructive engagement in the currently unfolding dangerous order. But he should first cast hubris and arrogance aside by admitting his errors and asking for forgiveness. Until then, his demons will continue to torment him.
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