It’s nice to know that in times of great crisis, you can always Comey home.
Beau Elliot
That was the Week That Was James Comey.
Apparently.
More than the substance of what he had to say was the spectacle that has become Comey going, and being, everywhere. All the news media, all the social media, all the media we didn’t now existed yet.
The Comey phenomenon became more pervasive than air. You’d think that Comey was Beyoncé taking Coachella by storm or something else important.
You know, something that the entire weight of the Republic rests upon. (Beyoncé, not Comey.)
I’m going too far, you say? Well, according to well-placed sources, signals-intelligence has picked up voices from the moons of Jupiter, and they’re all wondering if every human being on Planet Earth is named Comey.
Soon, no doubt, Comey mania will reach the pinnacle of human life as we know it: Comey’s voice on their voicemail will become the prize for contestants on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.”
Meanwhile, at less lofty heights, you’ll notice that as soon as Wall Street started playing whoopsie-doodle, patty-cake, patty-cake with the stock market, the Trumpster stopped bragging about how well the stock market was doing. And bragging about what they said about the U.S. economy.
There’s a lesson to be learned here: If the Trumpster can’t brag about it, and, more importantly, take all the credit for it, it (whatever it might be) didn’t happen. That’s the definition of Fake News in the Trumpiverse.
Another lesson is, often, the stock markets don’t have a lot to say about the U.S. economy. They have a lot to say about what certain algorithms have to say about making money. Or not losing money.
Some years back, the U.S. had the chance to see to see what Al Gore rhythms would do with the economy and the rest of the country, for that matter. And Al Gore rhythms did win the popular vote for president. But W. Bush won the vote that counted — on the Supreme Court — and thus the Electoral College, the other vote that counts.
Funny thing about all that. The last two Republican presidents, in their first run for the presidency, lost the popular vote but took the Electoral College. And the Electoral College is a lingering, rumpled, rusty decrepit vestige of the 18th century.
That College was a sop to the Southern states back in the Middle Ages when the Constitution was being written. If the president were elected by popular vote, the Northern candidate would always win easily, and at some point back then, slavery would be abolished. But with the magic of the Electoral College, a Southern, slave-owning person could become president. And indeed, five of the first presidents were slave-owning Southerners. Quite the legacy those Founding Fathers have. You can understand why we revere them so.
And, in case you missed it, the Trumpster will hold his first State Dinner of his administration, which is some kind of great big to-do deal, even if James Comey won’t be there.
However, the Trumpster, appaently, has given the cold shoulder to Democrats and news media for that first state dinner, with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Well, that’s OK. Who really wants to go to a fancy to-do dinner with a host whose notion of fine beverages consists of 17,000 cans of Diet Coke a day?
Not to insult the drinkers of Diet Coke, or, for that matter, the fine makers of the beverage, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard of any fine vintages of Diet Coke. I mean, in this world you’re not all that likely to stumble across any Diet Coke Grand Cru. Chateau Coca-Cola has quite reached that yet.
But just wait until James Comey discovers Diet Coke.
