As so-called 'fate' would have it, I'd intended posting this a few days ago, but procrastination got the better of me, as it oftentimes tends to; yet now events have overtaken me, with today's sudden dismissal of the Honourable James B Comey, Junior by the/his Dismisser-in-Chief, U.S President Donald Trump. Every time one views/hears (a video/audio recording of) the now former F.B.I. Director speaking, his voice/manner/ demeanour implicitly carries 'the ring of truth' (much as that 'ole New Zealand Colgate toothpaste ad ever memorably did in those far-flung days of my kiwi youth). A ring of truth about him that just 'rings true', if you'll *'scuse my appalling **doubled down metaphor...something somewhat anathema to today's partisan political rookies, whether (in the United States' context) of the Democratic Party or Republican Party persuasion/s.
But here methinks Mr Comey's suggesting - off his own bat, regarding his own 'last-minute' intervention prior to Presidential Election 2016 - that if indeed that had somehow turned/determined the result, the thought made him "somewhat nauseous": that that was the actual trigger-point, the thing which made President Trump's spirit snap and effectively made up his mind - to dismiss Comey (from his privileged post). I.e. the very idea, the sheer nerve of James Comey's thus suggesting that Trump's election had left a bitter aftertaste in Comey's gullet, which, to an Egoist and Egotist Extraordinaire such as Donald Trump, was not simply unable to be stomached (yes, again pardon the clear and unadulterated pun) but was veritably unfathomable, incomprehensible, off the radar screen. The very idea that anyone would not regard Trump's election as a celebration fete for time and immemorial, world without end...and then some. No, Comey had well and truly crossed the line, the threshold of acceptable commentary for an Administration official, and Trump was having none, or rather no more of it; full-stop; end of story.
Or rather, this served as a suitable justification/excuse/rationalization/incontrovertible raison d'etre for something Trump'd long since been seeking a convenient pretext for. And former 'The Apprentice' celebrity host has ever espied a good opportunity when he sees it staring him in the proverbial. So, like the ready cat, he instantly jumped upon his mouselike prey. Or, to use a metaphor dear to my own heart, like 'Smaug the Magnificent, the Chiefest of Calamities' in JRR Tolkien's inimitable children's classic The Hobbit (and its latter-day filmic trilogy adaptation) in relation to Bilbo 'Bagginses the Thief', flattery would've gotten Mr Comey everywhere with Trump; but this especial offering, this succulent and tasty trifle the former F.B.I. investigator was simply unwilling to give him. He was too much a person of integrity to stoop that low.
No, such in-your-face treachery, such "Treason!" as New Zealand's own long-serving Prime Minister and wannabe United Nations' Secretary-General Helen Clark herself once accused then TV3 current affairs' host John Campbell of showing her (during NZ's own Corngate scandal in the run-up to the 2002 General Election), and as Clark's own 'spiritual' forbear ***Queen Athaliah (of ancient Israel) herself, shouting "Treason! Treason!", accused her fellow Israelites of showing her as they unceremoniously deposed her from her usurped position, was not simply unconscionable, it was tantamount to the ultimate crime in Trump's newfangled America. And would not - under any circumstances whatsoever - be seen to be countenanced, by simply turning the other way and pretending it hadn't occurred. No, punishment swift and sure needed to be meted out, and the Commandant-in-Chief intended doing just that - and yesterday!
The ****sheer gall of Mr Comey's thus, if rather backhandedly and inadvertently, even suggesting that President Donald J Trump's America was not the best thing since wheat grain was transmogrified into our daily bread itself, and moreover wasn't headed by America's equivalent of North Korea's 'Great Leader' himself! Again, much like the proverbial mythological Dragon &/or Rooster of Chinese Horoscope fame whose essential nature and characteristics Mr Trump seems to have perfected to an art-form, Trump was brooking no opposition, he was broaching no disloyalty, certainly not from amidst the Governmental apparatus itself - or more precisely the apparatchiks themselves! Or at least this too served as an oh-so-convenient pretext for Trump's well-known real rationale: getting rid of a man whose oh-so-inconvenient investigations are getting just a little too close to the bone, and increasingly liable to lead to impeachment and indeed blowing the Trump Presidency quite literally out of the water altogether. 'The Russian Connection' vis-a-vis Presidential Election 2016, that is. Or at least that pertaining to his also-former Secretary of State Michael Flynn.
James Comey's voice (and strictly non-partisan approach, equally upsetting political partisans on all sides of America's mainstream political equation) *****'will [yet] speak' (despite Comey's, now effectively) 'being dead' (in terms of public role, anyhow)..and will yet serve, I've little doubt, as a footnote, a milestone signifying the beginning of the end in D J Trump's already unprecedented presidency, or at least in the infamy he manages to accrue to himself however long he manages to maintain and even literally cling for dear life to said office, come hell or high water.
*For 'excuse', one of my many (personalized) 'wordisms'; though it seems especially appropriate in this post, touching - however briefly, as it will - upon that newly recovered word in American politics - 'recuse'.
**In unintentional but fitting 'mimickry' of Donald J Trump's general political modus operandi.
***Who would've guessed that in the ancient annals, the hallowed halls of the olden time Kingdom of Israel (or rather, Kingdom of Judah in this case - following the divided monarchy upon King Solomon's death), there'd be a female monarch, i.e. a queen (upon the throne, naturally enough); something also the case - and equally unknown to the supposedly 'biblically literate' and non-believing masses alike - with the ages-old Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Vatican/Holy See/Papacy. If you find that a little beyond the pale, just a step (or several) way too far, check out re Pope Joan sometime. Unfortunately her evident pregnancy quickly saw the end to her pontificate, with the sort of fate meted out to her as to so many others by that Institution of Institutions!
****Or at the very least Comey's clear and obvious, utterly inexcusable
violation of D J Trump Cardinal Rule #1 (in terms of running the
United States' Government): "Don't you dare offend my inflated sense of ego...whatever else you do or don't do!; understood?!?!?"
*****See the Holy Bible, Hebrews 11:4.
P.S. The Russkies must be celebrating, even if the cows never quite come home...; and also Hillary Clinton. Perfect evidence if any was yet needed that James Comey's contribution was 'right on the mark': that of a very nonpartisan, non-political 'actor' in a highly politically partisan day and age. His contribution will assuredly and sorely be missed...if not by President Trump! And no, it didn't - wouldn't - couldn't possibly have anything to do with Comey et al's long-running, present-day investigation into illegal Russian involvement in U. S. Presidential Election 2016 - did/would/could it? As our kiwi 'tui billboards' put it so aptly: 'Yeah, right!'
P.P.S. To the question put this afternoon, in the immediate wake of this dismissal, by Larry Williams upon his Newstalk ZB Drivetime show, to another (?former) FBI agent, he responded that he didn't believe anything was lurking in the background, and would be later uncovered about James Comey (detrimental to his character). Quite contrary to the overt and wholly unfounded insinuation in TV3's 6 p.m. News this evening that Comey's previous testimony to the American legislature that there were numerous emails of Hillary Clinton then being investigated was somehow later disproved, and found to be just a couple or few.
P.P.P.S. Interestingly in writing this piece I've 'coincidentally'/serendipitously/fortuitously stumbled upon two previously unknown words which seem to sum up essential aspects of this article. Both taken from my trusty 'ole Chambers Concise Dictionary, they are: 'au courant', signifying 'well up in the facts or situation'; and 'comminate'/'commination', meaning 'to threaten'/'threatening, denunciation: a recital of God's threatenings'. The applicability to the actors in the aforementioned political drama I believe is not lost upon my readership: the former aptly sums up James Comey's ever professional approach to his work, the latter to Donald Trump's reaction to Comey's impeccable impeachable credentials and integrity.
P.P.P.P.S. There are seemingly innumerable 'inconsistencies' in Trump's 'explanation' for Comey Junior's sacking, among them the much-lauded 'intervention' of another of Trump's judicial appointments, ............ ............, conveniently ignoring the obvious ******Gigantisaurus in the room, i.e. that Attorney-General Jeff Sessions this time apparently didn't 'recuse himself', as he sometime ago pointedly did, in relation to the investigations into Russian Government involvement in the last American presidential election; the earlier instance in regards to Michael Flynn, one-time (and soon dismissed) Secretary of State, the latter of course vis-a-vis James Comey's own newly-ramped up and highly inconvenient investigations into that alleged involvement generally. And that - refusal to recuse himself, and moreover associated alleged personal involvement in the decision therefore to sack Comey - is *******so akin to the state of play in 1970s' America with former disgraced president Richard Nixon as to have been metaphorically pulsating neon warning lights and blaring danger signals to Sessions to 'cease and desist', to back off and maintain his sacred oath to, at all costs, maintain the strict neutrality and integrity of his office. It was indeed a litmus test he has blatantly, flagrantly failed - thus displaying his true partisan colours and showing his first allegiance is to his earthly boss (in the White House), and neither the land whose much-vaunted, world-renowned constitution he is pledged to uphold nor the religion of the God of the Bible he has publicly sworn to honour.
******Another newly minted david-edwinism.
*******What would otherwise, in any other circumstances, make this all a comedy of errors, of sheer farce and comedic drama and irony, is that none other than Nixon's own 'right-hand man', Dr Henry Kissinger, was seen entering the White House around the very time the President gave Comey his marching orders - as we all now know, in a way to publicly disgrace and humiliate Mr Comey while 'on the/his President's own business' visiting F.B.I. operatives out West. Someone if only by implication deeply associated with and therefore party to the sort of 'dirty tricks' ever associated with the Nixon brand, if admittedly never implicated in the scandal now immortalized as Watergate. A scandal moreover in which - as now - the President concerned was facing increasingly probable impeachment, ultimately departing before he was pushed. And as any close observer of the present-day American scene is only too well aware, possible (and in the view of many, like myself, both untraceable/unprovable and ********maybe even nonexistent) involvement by the Russians in Election 2016 is only one of almost innumerable ditches into which the Trump Presidency might sink, or, to vertically alter my metaphor, petards upon which it might be ultimately hung out to dry!
********Even were White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders (as per her well-known colleague and fellow femme-in-arms Kelly-Anne Conway) correct in her only too conveniently ready-to-order description of Democratic lawmakers' own previous demanding of Comey's dismissal as the ultimate hypocrisy (in light of their new-found horror at his sacking), what does even that really prove? It most assuredly is hardly a sign, proof or indication of the charges' falsity, rather that 'politicians will (ever and always) be (just that, i.e.) politicians' - on all sides of the political equation; and certainly Democrats in the USA have no monopoly on that! (Though innumerable commentators no doubt would have us believe that.)
Sure - let's give these 'unethical' Senate and House (of Representatives) Democrats their full due, they're political animals (through and through) - just like the vast majority of their Republican counterparts, truth be told - and can tell political blood (on President Trump's hands re that 'Russian involvement in Election 2016' and numerous other instances, and his colleagues' re a whole lot else besides) when they smell it, but then, what else is new (in partisan political hatred and ideological warfare)? Even if such a link cannot ultimately be proven, as well-known security analyst/critic/activist Glenn Greenwald himself readily conceded - as he has in times past - upon New York's award-winning Democracy Now broadcast this morning, what really does matter is that someone who clearly curries no favours with either side of mainstream politics (despite his definite Republican Party background, whilst appointment by a very Democratic President) in the United States (once arguably descriptive of Trump himself until he readily, upon election or at least inauguration, by the nature of his very appointments, jettisoned all semblance of centrism or moderate politics - much less the kind of old-fashioned New Deal Rooseveltian big government liberalism he'd championed in the long-running election campaign), is most definitely, as I've already deemed him, an 'equal opportunity offender' to either/both sides of said political divide, as per my own blogsite's motto, someone renowned for, if not bestowing bouquets and brickbats like Yours Truly, nevertheless '[carrying out his duties] with fear of and favour toward none'. Much in the same mould, incidentally, of his twice-millennium removed selfsame-initialled predecessor, Jesus Christ, Who was *********aptly described by the spies sent out by His enemies just prior to his Passion as One Who was true, Who spoke and taught aright, Who courted no man's favour and did not show personal favouritism. Such a descriptor, if indeed applicable to Comey Junior - as would at least, to all intents and purposes, appear the case - would surely be high praise indeed, however much he might be decried by ideologically partisan and otherwise-motivated political operatives and their hangers-on generally; (those who ever tend to see others through their own oh-so-cynical and jaded politically-partisan eyes.)
*********A personal mix 'n match of the essential substance and wording of Mark 12:14 and Luke 20:21.
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