* He’s back. It’s beyond ironic that F.B.I. Director James Comey is prominently back in the news.
Recall that he became a last-minute difference-maker in the presidential election by re-inserting Private ServerGate back into the news–while disregarding Justice Department advice to do otherwise. Now he’s asking the Jim Sessions-compromised Justice Department to disregard President Donald Trump’s bold assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Trump’s phones before the election. Actually, “disregard” is a euphemism for reject and rebuke– unheard of stuff in the context of a sitting president.
Maybe it is more than ironic. Won’t Comey’s memoir make an interesting read? It’s likely that his resignation isn’t too far off.
* The bar remains low–more like subterranean–for Trump acting presidential. His recent State of the Union speech was a classic example. He addressed a joint session of Congress, used a Teleprompter and didn’t regress to either locker-room vulgarities or airplane-hangar pander language. He spoke in platitudes, although none of them actually mentioned “democracy.” He looked like a person reading the speech for the first time. But no one yelled: “You lie!”
This was no presidential “pivot.” This was the “Presidential Apprentice.” And as we know, he was back on Twitter within hours with more Russian-scandal diversions.
Most observers considered his honoring of the widow of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens as a moving highlight. It was. But it was also a heart-wrenching optic prop–at odds with real self-sacrificing patriotism as well as with the truth over who ultimately gave the Yemen-mission go-ahead and what useful intelligence actually resulted.
* Interesting pull quote that the Tampa Bay Times selected from “Why American Democracy Will Hold” by Robert Kuttner. He noted how strange it was for Americans, who by and large don’t love militarism, to now find solace in the three retired Marine Corps generals–Defense Secretary James Mattis, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly–who stand between Donald Trump and a hair-Twitter temperament with nuclear-code access.
“These are serious men, with the patriotism and self-respect to tell the president when he is blowing smoke,” says Kuttner. “He can’t fire them all.”
He can’t? There’s a reason why “Seven Days in May” is now back in the conversation.
* Re: Trump’s revised travel ban. Finally something to rally around:”Fewer flaws!”
* White House spokesman Sean Spicer (not Melissa McCarthy) addressed reports that the Obama Administration kept incriminating intelligence linking the Trump campaign and Russian officials. He said, “There continues to be no there, there.” That sound you just heard was Gertrude Stein doing a 360 in her grave.