The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, by James Thurber, was first published as a short story in 1939 in The New Yorker. It has always been one of my favorites. Walter is a world class day-dreamer. He’s mild-mannered and shy but has an incredible fantasy life. He imagines he’s a surgeon, fighter pilot, and all sorts of brave, manly, heroic characters in his daydreams, which are often interrupted before his daydream’s tragic or triumphant conclusion.

Mitty is described in The American Heritage Dictionary as “an ordinary, often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs.” I just finished reading and re-reading all 15 pages of disgraced former FBI Director James Comey’s memos describing in great detail his three face-to-face meetings and phone conversations with Donald Trump.

I concluded this: James Comey is Walter Mitty.

Comey writes as if his meetings with Big D were acts of courage, requiring extraordinary bravery, advanced tactical planning, and incredibly effective communications. His self-reverence throughout the 15 pages is astounding.

In his memo describing his first meeting with “PE” (President-Elect) Trump in Trump Tower on Jan. 6, 2017, Comey writes that PE “began by telling me that I had one heck of a year but that I had conducted myself honorably and had a great reputation.” After some small talk, Comey must have switched into James Bond mode, a la Walter Mitty, because he wrote:

“I then executed the session exactly as I had planned.”

Holy cow! What a hero! Alone in Trump Tower, mano-a-mano with the actual PE, Comey courageously told Big D the “Russians allegedly had tapes involving him and prostitutes” in 2013 at the Moscow Ritz Carlton.

Switching into his formidable Nostradamus mode, and perhaps using the Vulcan mind-meld technique, Comey then read the PE’s mind.

“…He said he’s the kind of guy who didn’t need to ‘go there’ and laughed (which I understood to be communicating that he didn’t need to pay for sex).”

Comey writes further about his telepathic powers: “He said ‘2013’ to himself, as if trying to remember that period of time, but didn’t add anything.”

Comey ends this first memo by saying the PE “said more nice things about me and how he looks forward to working with me.” Well, who wouldn’t?

Comey apparently decided some things were best left unsaid, because the brave G-man did not muster the guts to tell the PE that the source of the prostitute allegation was the Steele Dossier, cooked up by Trump-hating, former MI-6 spy Christopher Steele at the behest of Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS. Nor did Comey tell the PE that the Steele Dossier was paid for by HRC’s campaign and the DNC to the tune of $12 million.

In spite of two more face-to-face meetings and three phone conversations, Comey never told Trump the source of the dossier information or who paid for it.

Trump and Comey had dinner in the Green Room of the White House on January 28. In discussing whether Comey would remain as FBI Director, Comey wrote that he told the President “he could fire me at any time he wished,” but that he wanted to stay on because he found the job “hugely rewarding.”

In a blatant display of cunning and misdirection, Walter Mitty Comey told the President “I don’t do sneaky things. I don’t leak. I don’t do weasel moves.”

Since he has clearly done all of the above, Comey should have added “yet.”

In the biggest whopper of the one hour and 20 minute meal, Comey said “I then explained what FBI people were like, that whatever their personal views, they strip them when they step into their bureau roles and actually hold ‘political people’ in slight contempt, without regard to party.”

In light of the lovebirds Peter Strzok/Lisa Page’s texts, and other revelations of the intense dislike of Trump in the FBI and DOJ, the foregoing might have been Comey’s attempt at tongue-in-check humor.

Comey writes that he told the President on February 14, 2017, that he “was eager to find leakers and would like to nail one to the door as a message.”

This must have been part of another Walter Mitty fantasy, because Comey later testified under oath to Congress that he intentionally leaked these memos to a law school professor friend to pass to the NY Times.

A fair reading of Comey’s 15 pages of memos reveals: 1) No evidence of Trump/Russia collusion; 2) Nothing that could remotely be considered obstruction of justice; 3) Comey’s sanctimony and self-importance is off the charts; and 4) Comey’s book should have been titled A Higher Loyalty to Myself.