Comey's Goddamn Book [A Higher Loyalty]

So It Goes

It came out today. Discuss it here.

So It Goes

If this thread devolves into an argument about whether Comey swung the 2016 election or not, it will be closed.

Find some new things to discuss.

Forar

Well, my copy arrived, so I guess I'll have to actually try to get ahead of this one, instead of falling months behind like with Fire and Fury.

Had some rough WoW raiding flashbacks with that one...

mcp

Started reading this.

Immediately the voice in my head sounded like Osborne Cox recording his memoir in Burn After Reading.

Made my brain cut that shit out real quick.

shryke

So It Goes wrote: »

If this thread devolves into an argument about whether Comey swung the 2016 election or not, it will be closed.

Find some new things to discuss.

Can we talk about our opinions on his attitude and claims in the book that essentially amount to "I did nothing wrong when in came to the Clinton Investigations in 2016 and my press conferences and public statements on the matter"?

So It Goes

shryke wrote: »

So It Goes wrote: »

If this thread devolves into an argument about whether Comey swung the 2016 election or not, it will be closed.

Find some new things to discuss.

Can we talk about our opinions on his attitude and claims in the book that essentially amount to "I did nothing wrong when in came to the Clinton Investigations in 2016 and my press conferences and public statements on the matter"?

Good luck doing that without it devolving into what I just said we don't need to rehash in this thread.

Jragghen

So It Goes wrote: »

shryke wrote: »

So It Goes wrote: »

If this thread devolves into an argument about whether Comey swung the 2016 election or not, it will be closed.

Find some new things to discuss.

Can we talk about our opinions on his attitude and claims in the book that essentially amount to "I did nothing wrong when in came to the Clinton Investigations in 2016 and my press conferences and public statements on the matter"?

Good luck doing that without it devolving into what I just said we don't need to rehash in this thread.

I recommend doing so by referring to him as a silly goose.

Steev

Just with like with Fire & Fury, I placed a hold on the ebook version from my local library system. Current status:


I'm sure they'll get more licensed copies, at least. I think that they ended up getting about 320 copies to meet the demand for Fire & Fury, so I got it relatively quickly.

mcp wrote: »

Started reading this.

Immediately the voice in my head sounded like Osborne Cox recording his memoir in Burn After Reading.

Made my brain cut that shit out real quick.

My wife and I both pictured it reading like this as well. Mostly because we just recently rewatched that movie.

Zek

I don't think this book is going to do anything at all to be honest, not even move the needle. Comey is by now firmly established as being on the anti-Trump team, rather than being a neutral third party - partly because of the smear job on him, partly because of his own statements since he was fired. So his subjective opinion is irrelevant, and he doesn't have any substantive new information we didn't get before from his testimony. It may well be that his firing becomes the centerpiece of Mueller's obstruction case, I don't know, but that'll happen with or without him at this point.

Styrofoam Sammich

If I just read the highlights that are reported on I can find out anything of importance with a substantial drop in insufferability.

spool32

Dude deserves to throw shade after the attacks Trump has thrown at him. I'm looking forward to reading this - it is only the 5th political book I've bought in my life:

1) the Way Things Ought to Be by Rush Limbaugh
2) The Prince of Darkness by Robert Novak
3) Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama
4) We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

and now this one. I feel like I'm seeing some kind of a... progression here

Sadgasm

Political books by their very nature tend to follow a theme, mostly boiling down to "shit happened but none of it was my fault". This book in particular reminds me a lot of the book written by the chief investigator of the Olof Palme murder, which was infamously poorly handled and everyone involved just seemed interested in avoiding blame rather than doing their jobs.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

I just can't bring myself to give a shit about this book; I feel like there's no chance there'll be anything in here that we don't basically already know, and the excepts I've seen so far have Comey painting his conduct during the election in the most self-serving possible light. It seems deeply unlikely that it answers any of the questions I'm interested in having answered.

Mr Fuzzbutt

Honestly I just like hearing people say Trump is a terrible person.

Variable

Mr Fuzzbutt wrote: »

Honestly I just like hearing people say Trump is a terrible person.

I believe this is basically the marketing strategy for the book

Henroid

Variable wrote: »

Mr Fuzzbutt wrote: »

Honestly I just like hearing people say Trump is a terrible person.

I believe this is basically the marketing strategy for the book

It's also the sort of attack Trump actually feels hurt by and pays attention to. You can provide all the legal citation and logic in the world, and he'll shrug it off with a "so what?"

Tell him his ratings suck or that he has small hands, however, and he loses it.

Sadgasm

Mr Fuzzbutt wrote: »

Honestly I just like hearing people say Trump is a terrible person.

Politicians are terrible just because thats the nature of the job. As far as politics go, Trump doesnt even rank a top 10. The problem is that Trump is a media personality first, sort of like Reagan but worse. He's perfectly capable of acting like an average leader when he wants to, the issue is that he's not conditioned to react like one. You talk to him in a meeting and it's fine, he's a businessman. Not a good one but still, he knows how to behave in negotiations. The real problem comes when something happens and he gets angry or he gets an idea and no one keeps him away from social media, he just blurts out whatever dumbass idea pops into his head. You dont think Bush Jr or Sr wanted to flip off China or North Korea a dozen times a day? The world would already be a glowing parking lot if politicians spoke their minds like Trump does. It's not a sign of strong leadership, it's a sign of bad choices.

TryCatcher

Eat it You Nasty Pig. wrote: »

I just can't bring myself to give a shit about this book; I feel like there's no chance there'll be anything in here that we don't basically already know, and the excepts I've seen so far have Comey painting his conduct during the election in the most self-serving possible light. It seems deeply unlikely that it answers any of the questions I'm interested in having answered.

Reading about how Saint Comey That Did Nothing Wrong let Trump bully him seems particulary nauseating.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

like the only explanation for Comey's actions during the election that really makes sense is that he knew there was no criminal wrongdoing by Clinton et al, and yet felt simply saying that (by omission, in ending the investigation without charges) would get him slagged by Republicans. So, he tried to split the difference with that ridiculous press conference he gave and (predictably) made everybody mad.

is the book likely to account for the reasoning behind these decisions in an honest way? No, probably not, because the only way to square them is to admit that they were the result of a craven political calculation that'd contradict every public position he's taken since. The end results of that decision are already known to us, and the book seems unlikely to expand on them in any interesting way, particularly since Comey seems to have deferred to Trump until the precise moment it was obvious he'd be drummed out of the government

Javen

The thing that gets me is how everything regarding Comey could have gone so differently if Trump had managed to be magnanimous for once in his goddamn life, made up a believable-sounding reason, and asked Comey to resign with dignity. It’d barely have made the news, it’s entirely possible we wouldn’t have Mueller, and we definitely wouldn’t have this book. It’s so plainly written with tons of spite, for making Comey look like a fool.

The Dude With Herpes

To me it seemed like, since news outlets have had his book for a bit already, and nothing from it was lighting up the news, or at least competing with the Cohen stuff, the book was probably just a lot of stuff we already knew from the narrative of someone who clearly thinks very highly of their own moral authority.

So I thought it was, along with Comey at this point, safely ignorable. Presumably the FBI and Mueller have anything noteworthy from Comey they need, so we're good. Let the dude get his rocks off on his tour, make a few bucks, whatever. That isn't to say I don't have opinions about election related stuff with the guy, but it isn't for this thread.

However; his interview with 20/20? This nugget?

Comey wrote:

“I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they’re duty-bound to do directly,” Comey said, according to a transcript of the interview. “People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.”

Fuck the fuck off you fucking fucker. We have a representative government for a god damn reason you stupid son of a bitch. We elect people to speak for us and to govern us accordingly. So, in the course of the government functioning, that is run by said elected officials, they find that one of the people leading the country is breaking the law? The laws passed by the people we elected to pass them give those people, who represent the voters, the authority to uphold said laws, rules, and regulations. Yeah, the whole checks and balances thing is also there for a reason. If they find that someone else in the government should be removed, we gave them the fucking authority to make that god damn decision. That is the way it is supposed to work.

Holy fucking shit that shit pisses me off. The government that represents the voters would let those voters off the hook if it functions the way it was designed?

Fuck.

You.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Styrofoam Sammich

spool32 wrote: »

Dude deserves to throw shade after the attacks Trump has thrown at him. I'm looking forward to reading this - it is only the 5th political book I've bought in my life:

1) the Way Things Ought to Be by Rush Limbaugh
2) The Prince of Darkness by Robert Novak
3) Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama
4) We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

and now this one. I feel like I'm seeing some kind of a... progression here

We're gonna make you a luxury space communist before you retire.

Fencingsax

To be fair to Comey, a whole bunch of people thought getting Nixon to resign and then pardoning him let us off the hook for Nixon.

Of course, most of those people are from the party he identifies with, and some are responsible for the mess we're in now.

Muzzmuzz

I think most people were okay with Nixon resigning, it was the PARDON that was incredibly off putting.

Label

There was a comment in one of the threads on this (I forget which one) that I want to highlight.

It was something to the effect of "Republicans would love to tie criminal Comey to 'Crooked Hillary', and say Comey should be ignored." That would be used as a tool by Trump to discredit the entire Mueller investigation. Not for everyone, but surely for some.

If the left joins in calling Comey a criminal, it will be much more powerful and effective at discrediting Comey (and the investigation) than if just Trump does.

Low-information voters will not know that Comey is being called a criminal by the left because he sunk Clinton's campaign. And they will not know that the right is calling Comey a criminal because he didn't lock up Clinton when they wanted him to. They will only know that "both sides are calling Comey a criminal." And most voters are low-information voters.

Essentially, the right will deceptively define what Comey's crimes were? I think? The hypocrisy of using Comey's letters that gave them the win in 2016 against him will not phase them in the slightest.


What do we do about this? As we talk about Comey, I think we need to deal with this in some way? Maybe there's a way to frame Comey's October letters so that they're defined and discussed differently than Trump's attacks on Comey? I'm not sure what the answer is here.

What I'm saying is, I think we need a way to talk about the problems with Comey and his actions, without giving Trump and the Republicans more ammunition.

Harry Dresden

Label wrote: »

There was a comment in one of the threads on this (I forget which one) that I want to highlight.

It was something to the effect of "Republicans would love to tie criminal Comey to 'Crooked Hillary', and say Comey should be ignored." That would be used as a tool by Trump to discredit the entire Mueller investigation. Not for everyone, but surely for some.

If the left joins in calling Comey a criminal, it will be much more powerful and effective at discrediting Comey (and the investigation) than if just Trump does.

Low-information voters will not know that Comey is being called a criminal by the left because he sunk Clinton's campaign. And they will not know that the right is calling Comey a criminal because he didn't lock up Clinton when they wanted him to. They will only know that "both sides are calling Comey a criminal." And most voters are low-information voters.

Essentially, the right will deceptively define what Comey's crimes were? I think? The hypocrisy of using Comey's letters that gave them the win in 2016 against him will not phase them in the slightest.


What do we do about this? As we talk about Comey, I think we need to deal with this in some way? Maybe there's a way to frame Comey's October letters so that they're defined and discussed differently than Trump's attacks on Comey? I'm not sure what the answer is here.

What I'm saying is, I think we need a way to talk about the problems with Comey and his actions, without giving Trump and the Republicans more ammunition.

That's never been an option. That said, we can see him as a flawed individual who was an ally against Trump once he got into office. He has many good traits, but he also has bad ones because humans are complicated.

Low information voters will low information vote, the left can try to convince them as much as they can but at the end of the day it's up to them to come to their own conclusions.

What matters now is to properly utilise him as an ally to discredit Trump, since that's the world we live in. But it's important to do this with an asterix, and to let him know the left don't consider him a champion. Because he's out for his own interests, not ours - and right now those two agendas align briefly.

enlightenedbum

Comey is a smug, self-satisfied, privileged, insulated asshole who is going to make millions of dollars from an unethical decision he made.

Fucking hate our fake ass meritocracy.

TryCatcher

The Intercept have some choice quotes of Comey's book and they are wild:

But Comey’s insistence on upholding the law is devotional to the point of ruthlessness, as he makes clear when explaining the need to send Martha Stewart to jail in 2003 for lying about an insider stock tip she had received.

“People must fear the consequences of lying in the justice system or the system can’t work,” Comey writes. “There was once a time when most people worried about going to hell if they violated an oath taken in the name of God. That divine deterrence has slipped away from our modern cultures. In its place, people must fear going to jail. They must fear their lives being turned upside down. They must fear their pictures splashed on newspapers and websites. People must fear having their names forever associated with a criminal act if we are to have a nation with the rule of law.”

This is ridiculous and dangerous, because it suggests Americans are insufficiently cowed by a necessarily God-like wrath of the machinery of law enforcement. Comey is worried that the country risks degenerating into criminality and sloth — and all that’s standing between us and chaos is the FBI’s lash and our submission to it.

In a short chapter on racial injustice, Comey describes the killings of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott and Freddie Gray as “tragic deaths.” But he turns the killings around, lamenting that they “dominated perceptions of the police. They swamped and overshadowed millions of positive, professional encounters between citizens and police officers, and extraordinary anger was building toward all uniformed law enforcement.” Yes, Comey really went there — blaming the victims of police abuse for making people upset that police were abusing them.

Comey did not hide these views while at the FBI, and after making a speech in Chicago in 2015 that was not well-received by the civil rights community, he was summoned to the Oval Office by President Barack Obama. Comey describes that session in his book, and he seems to have doubled down, telling the country’s first black president that the law enforcement community was upset at the way Obama had used the phrase “mass incarceration.” It was offensive, Comey told the president.

“I thought the term was both inaccurate and insulting to a lot of good people in law enforcement who cared deeply about helping people trapped in dangerous neighborhoods,” Comey writes. “It was inaccurate in the sense that there was nothing ‘mass’ about the incarceration: every defendant was charged individually, represented individually by counsel, convicted by a court individually, sentenced individually, reviewed on appeal individually, and incarcerated. That added up to a lot of people in jail, but there was nothing ‘mass’ about it.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the harbringer of divine justice against Trump.

Preacher

Wow fuck off James Comey. And I don't think as a liberal I have to support you to prevent Trump from discrediting you. Everything Comey fucking says discredits himself. That mass incarceration quote is like a middle finger.

Hobnail

He's delusional, unsurprisingly. Insulated in fucking deed.

syndalis

Fuck James Comey.

That is all.

spool32

Okay so I'm two chapters into this book and so far some things he has done.

Addressed accusations and sanctimonious right out of the gate, by saying that he recognizes it could be the case that people view it that way and talking about why he is trying to reflect views on leadership. It begins the book by acknowledging his many flaws.

Next up, a story that is, in effect, about his own abject cowardice during a home invasion as a teenager, and how it affected him later in life.

Next some stories about early cases breaking up the mob, and he takes Rudy Giuliani to task for being overly bombastic and lacking humility.

I'm only a couple of chapters in, but so far this is not a book about how awesome James Comey is. He's approaching this topic of leadership and these stories with self-awareness.

BigJoeM

Obama should have fired him right after that meeting.

Coney had no business running a local precinct let alone the FBI with views like that.

Dac

MorganV wrote: »

The Dude With Herpes wrote: »

To me it seemed like, since news outlets have had his book for a bit already, and nothing from it was lighting up the news, or at least competing with the Cohen stuff, the book was probably just a lot of stuff we already knew from the narrative of someone who clearly thinks very highly of their own moral authority.

So I thought it was, along with Comey at this point, safely ignorable. Presumably the FBI and Mueller have anything noteworthy from Comey they need, so we're good. Let the dude get his rocks off on his tour, make a few bucks, whatever. That isn't to say I don't have opinions about election related stuff with the guy, but it isn't for this thread.

However; his interview with 20/20? This nugget?

Comey wrote:

“I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they’re duty-bound to do directly,” Comey said, according to a transcript of the interview. “People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.”

Fuck the fuck off you fucking fucker. We have a representative government for a god damn reason you stupid son of a bitch. We elect people to speak for us and to govern us accordingly. So, in the course of the government functioning, that is run by said elected officials, they find that one of the people leading the country is breaking the law? The laws passed by the people we elected to pass them give those people, who represent the voters, the authority to uphold said laws, rules, and regulations. Yeah, the whole checks and balances thing is also there for a reason. If they find that someone else in the government should be removed, we gave them the fucking authority to make that god damn decision. That is the way it is supposed to work.

Holy fucking shit that shit pisses me off. The government that represents the voters would let those voters off the hook if it functions the way it was designed?

Fuck.

You.

Colbert covered that Monday night. Something like "Comey thinks the American people deserve three more years of Donald Trump."

If this was a "dislike", that'd be one thing. Trump's approval is in the toilet, etc, and he can't get his agenda moving, lame duck for three years. But this is MASSIVE ethical and potentially criminal actions by the CiC. If that's not a reason to use the powers available, when is? What's Comey's "red line" for impeachment? Cause it doesn't look like there is one. At which point I'll echo...

Fuck.

You.

Comey.

We must respect the institutions of our democracy and ensure that it discharges its duties in a timely manner, with no interference from personal concerns.

Unless it turns out I fucked up, in which case, you should really clean this up for me.

joshofalltrades

Comey is a Republican. It’s no surprise he is about as woke as Rip Van Winkle. The self-justifications and personal philosophy diatribes aren’t what I care to hear about from him. It’s the personal interactions between him and Trump that have me interested.

Harry Dresden

I'm interested in what the FBI was like during the election, it was supposed to be a civil war over there for a while. He was right in the middle of it.

a5ehren

Yeah, he's a Republican who was director of the fucking FBI. His politics (especially about police and the fucking thereof) are not going to prove satisfactory to anyone on this forum.

zepherin

Preacher wrote: »

Wow fuck off James Comey. And I don't think as a liberal I have to support you to prevent Trump from discrediting you. Everything Comey fucking says discredits himself. That mass incarceration quote is like a middle finger.

So like I get it, but I don't know why you are surprised. He was the Director of the FBI, their biggest job is arresting people and throwing them in jail. So his statements are consistent with a police commissioner, which he effectively was. I don't agree with him, but I understand his point of view.

shryke

zepherin wrote: »

Preacher wrote: »

Wow fuck off James Comey. And I don't think as a liberal I have to support you to prevent Trump from discrediting you. Everything Comey fucking says discredits himself. That mass incarceration quote is like a middle finger.

So like I get it, but I don't know why you are surprised. He was the Director of the FBI, their biggest job is arresting people and throwing them in jail. So his statements are consistent with a police commissioner, which he effectively was. I don't agree with him, but I understand his point of view.

Sure. But in the face of the only thing people actually give a shit about from this book (ie - Trump stufF) it's good to remember he's not some white knight come to save us but a sanctimonious law-and-order-politics asshole interested in avoiding responsibility for his fuck-ups.

milski

The Dude With Herpes wrote: »

To me it seemed like, since news outlets have had his book for a bit already, and nothing from it was lighting up the news, or at least competing with the Cohen stuff, the book was probably just a lot of stuff we already knew from the narrative of someone who clearly thinks very highly of their own moral authority.

So I thought it was, along with Comey at this point, safely ignorable. Presumably the FBI and Mueller have anything noteworthy from Comey they need, so we're good. Let the dude get his rocks off on his tour, make a few bucks, whatever. That isn't to say I don't have opinions about election related stuff with the guy, but it isn't for this thread.

However; his interview with 20/20? This nugget?

Comey wrote:

“I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they’re duty-bound to do directly,” Comey said, according to a transcript of the interview. “People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.”

Fuck the fuck off you fucking fucker. We have a representative government for a god damn reason you stupid son of a bitch. We elect people to speak for us and to govern us accordingly. So, in the course of the government functioning, that is run by said elected officials, they find that one of the people leading the country is breaking the law? The laws passed by the people we elected to pass them give those people, who represent the voters, the authority to uphold said laws, rules, and regulations. Yeah, the whole checks and balances thing is also there for a reason. If they find that someone else in the government should be removed, we gave them the fucking authority to make that god damn decision. That is the way it is supposed to work.

Holy fucking shit that shit pisses me off. The government that represents the voters would let those voters off the hook if it functions the way it was designed?

Fuck.

You.

Whaddya know, he's a hack who wants to keep Republicans in power.