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Trump Fends Off “Showboat” Comey And The Federal Zombies
He pleaded the case of a loyal soldier, rather than forsake retired US Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn to the mercies of FBI director James Comey. And he asked for loyalty from the congenitally disloyal. You’ll agree: President Donald Trump is being indicted on technicalities and on personal style.
Distill the president’s unremarkable actions, subject to a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, and it becomes clear that the establishment—for sensible people outside the beltway have dissociated from the Russia-collusion phantasmagoria—is indicting him on the plain, impolitic speech that catapulted Donald Trump from candidate to president.
Trump is “aggressive and oblivious to the rules of engagement,” fumed CNN’s sibilant Chris Cillizza, formerly of the Washington Post. Correct. But was the language of combat you deployed, Mr. Cillizza, a Freudian slip?
The president’s linguistic infelicities—a word salad, at times—have given the press popinjays and their Washington overlords the foothold needed to go after the president. Throw in the “bad” habits of a businessman he has retained. Trump transacts with everyone—Russians too. We voted for deals, not wars.
This is the sum and substance of President Trump’s offenses. That, and beating Hillary Clinton to the White House.
Proponents of free-markets understand how business operates. Statists don’t. To the statist, the Fake News fabricator and the stark raving mad Washington Post (WaPo), “Trump sitting next to Russian Ambassador Yuri Dubinin, at a luncheon hosted by Leonard Lauder, the oldest son of Estée Lauder,” in 1986, is incriminating evidence … of something.
The tidbit made it on to a sinister WaPo list, “Team Trump’s ties to Russian interests.” To the same statists, Trump “meeting with Russian businessmen, including a real estate developer,” in 2013, “while in Moscow for his Miss Universe competition,” is yet more circumstantial evidence of … something.
Citizen Trump was bringing a fun event to Russia! To members of the American media-military-congressional-industrial complex, being amicable with foreign interests is a foreign concept. At the same time, he did some business there. Inconceivable! Had Mr. Trump smuggled a dirty bomb into Russia, under the “clever” guise of pursuing commerce, his militant enemies stateside might forgive him today. The tools threatening President Trump with impeachment have one bag of tricks stuffed with power tools: they audit, indict, arrest, bomb, change regimes. They don’t make profitable business deals; they tax them. They don’t make peace; they wage war.
Prone to seeing faces in the clouds, the reporters—they’ve lost their minuscule minds—frame the act of putting in a kind word for “a good guy,” as Trump did in February 2017, for Gen. Michael Flynn, as an obstruction of justice. Trump had forgotten he was talking to a cunning, career bureaucrat and government attorney. Naively, he asked “Showboat” Comey to take it easy on Flynn. “He’s a good guy,” said the president. “I hope you can let this go.” Trump’s language is that of a regular guy. He sees a decent man who’s served his country with distinction being hounded. He puts in a good word for him.
Flynn is not a federal zombie in the mold of the terrorist-fighting Jack Bauer, protagonist in the defunct cult TV series 24. Did the general not say bad things about Islam (whose intimate association with blood-letting has been expunged from FBI training manuals)? Indeed, he did.
A theme in 24 was Bauer’s eternal willingness to be chewed and spat out by the successive governments he serves. As Bauer’s Chinese jailers hand him over to his American handlers, the latter chain him like a dog to a fence. Bauer is accustomed to being manacled by his owners. The Top Dogs just don’t trust their lapdog, despite his blind devotion. In fact, Bauer was forever being chained by his “colleagues” and “escorted” to the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit’s “holding cells.” These hermetic chambers were used mostly to confine and torture America’s enemies, which included some of CTU’s finest. Or, agents who’ve been tortured by the enemy and must now be counter-tortured by CTU. Assets have to be utilized to the full.
Flynn broke free. So what? Let him be.
Donald Trump is unschooled in the rules of state. The president is too set in his ways and independent-minded to imbibe the layers of debased semiotics with which government lawyers routinely rape reality. Requesting mercy for Flynn was legally foolish, but it was the humane thing to do. It can’t be considered illicit in natural law.
Of course, a president is allowed to assemble around him an administration willing to carry out his plans. Thus, inquiring whether as fickle a man as Comey would support, not sabotage, the president’s administration is a perfectly rational way of determining whether Comey should remain in place as FBI director.
Outside politics, fending for Flynn would be normal. Within the dead zone of politics and state-made law, a president who speaks kindly about a marked man becomes one himself.
Published in General
This bogus Russia investigation and the equally bogus Valerie Plame investigation underline the necessity of dismantling the Deep State. It is a cancer upon the Republic.
Reading Ricochet and noting some of the contentiousness we get into here, most of it stems from how we word things. There is a group here that reads everything in a very literal way, like you would read legalese in a legal contract or a legal defense from a case of law. They require precision of words and can not wade through implication, rhetoric, and a common carelessness with “getting the gist” and “good enough” communication style.
Trump really does talk like a common person. He talks like me. He talks like my brothers. He talks like my sister. He talks like us when we are sitting around the table. He does not parse his words – few people do! His speeches are far superior to anything else he says (likely because someone writes them for him) because prepared statements are allowed time to analyze and dissect and check for incontinuity.
If I were president, I’d probably stick my foot in it once or twice – but I am a lot more careful with my words than most people (not in a legal sense… legalese is staid, boring, and clinical).
@ilanamercer … this is simply perfect …
Flynn is more under investigation for his business relationship with Turkey than with anything involving Russia that I know of.
Doesn’t matter. Putin is a murderer and should be crushed at the first opportunity. If that requires grinding Russia’s economy into dust, then so be it.
What Ilana said.
I completely and totally agree. I love the way she writes.
I took Trump’s request for “loyalty” from Comey to be basically “I’d like to know that you’re not trying to stab me in the back and screw me over.”
And that was too much to ask!
It will never matter what he says or how he phrases it. They’ll always find a way to turn it into something nefarious.
This phrase is a keeper. I’m stealing it.
I absolutely love your writing. You should be a contributor.
I completely agree. Maybe start with a guest appearance on Radio Deplorable with @davecarter.
It’s not illegal. Dershowitz has even weighed in on this — it’s not legally foolish nor is it illegal.
You are stating this is as if it would pertain to Obama or any Democrat — it doesn’t. This is a special rule for Republicans only.
Yes, Trump could tell that Comey is an untrustworthy scumbag and low life opportunist — and I’m thinking more and more: a sociopath just like the president who appointed him.
Within, unfortunately.
Thank you for this post. I was ecstatic after the Comey hearing: I thought, they’ll have to let up now! Even Chris Matthews thinks so. But no. The relentless mockery and sneering is only getting worse and worse and worse. And worse.
@ilanamercer, do you see any hope that this will ever end? That Trump will ever get any assistance, or even just non-interference, in putting through the agenda which got him elected?
Ilana, for what it’s worth, it looks to me like you knocked that one out of the ball park and into a far corner of the parking lot. Clear-eyed and elegantly written. Thank you for posting this!
It was legal, but politically foolish.
None of our political class (Rs) would have been caught dead saying something with so much rope… unless you are Mitt Romney.
This is what I meant by the legalese. Trump isn’t precise and he doesn’t cover his arse well – but that’s why some of us love him. We understand him even if they don’t.
I have to think Comey knew what Trump meant, but also knew how it could be twisted in the Washington legalese sense, which is why he leaked it. What a snake. Glad he was fired.
Compared to what? Most of these kinds of conversations go on all the time at WH level. Nothing wrong with them. Comey is the one who is making you think Trump is foolish.
It only proves that Comey is a scumbag — that’s all it proves.
Yes.
The Mercer Moment.
Or Something. Every day.
Yes but did you all notice she doesn’t interact with us? Surely we have enough contributors like that already.
Now that you mention it yes. But the reading is good. That’s enough for me.
That is a strange way to approach punishing a murderer.
If the money men behind him decides it’s time for him to go, he goes. If he doesn’t go quietly, then he goes with the sound of a Marakov 9x18mm round.
Works for me.
Thanks for “The Love.” Back at you. I read all comments and appreciate the clever support. Clever: Ricochet Mercer readers are smart and discerning. But please be patient. I’m a one-woman operation. Interaction is limited only by time and resources, not good will.
The Mercer Column has been around since its inception in 1998 in Canada, and continuing in 2001 in the US. It was briefly syndicated and dropped when, you guessed it, the Column did not fall into the GOP vs. Democrat binary “thinking” enforced. It never has and it never will.
The difference now is that, like some of you seem to think, the time of previously marginalized opinion has arrived. If our neoconservative/neoliberal overlords in politics, print and publishing don’t start listening, well, then; their forums may not last.
Of course, I would love for the column to be picked up by the powers “Upstairs,” in the Main Feed. If you’d like to see it there, say something. I’ll be eternally grateful. But it’s been almost 20 years of producing a unique, quality column with no dislodging of received opinion and those who monopolize discourse in our country.
… Until The Donald. (Which is why the title The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed, published June 29, 2016.)
But since I’m used to the intransigence (and tedium) of mainstream, I’m happy to stay “Downstairs,” with you all.
So know that I read and am grateful for kind words …
I … am … saying … something !!!
It would be a great reflection on the site to have you as a featured contributor.
Thank you Ilana. Sharing your post is “interactive” enough. We’ll take whatever you have to offer in thoughts and ideas whenever you have them.
Your writing is delicious.
For now, members who like Ilana’s writing, be sure to like this post.
Ilana’s post is so good I almost smiled. But then I remembered I have an image to maintain.
‘fess up RDATEJ&h … you smiled when you saw the OP’s avatar.
Not in front of the Klingons.