And that is why Mrs. Clinton has blamed Mr. Comey for her defeat, and why she would surely have dismissed him as FBI Director. And, Republicans would have seen that dismissal as politically-motivated revenge, or as an effort to remove a dangerous critic. Gee, that’s just how the Democrats are viewing Mr. Comey’s dismissal by President Trump. And do you know what? Both of them may be right. On the other hand, it may be a simple case of a President removing someone in whom he no longer has confidence.
By John Shaffer One of the biggest happenings of the past week has been President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. It is a little delicious that a catch phrase ('You're Fired!") made famous by the President during a previous career as a reality-TV show host would be the cause of so much turmoil. The last time a President fired an FBI Director was 1993 when President Clinton fired William Sessions. The Republic did not crumble in 1993, and it won’t over the Comey firing either. That doesn’t mean the Comey firing was handled well – and it hasn’t proven to be very “popular,” especially with Democrats – although many of them were all but crying for his scalp just about up to the time he actually was fired. How many people believe that Mr. Comey would have lasted 117 days into a Hillary Clinton administration? Of course, President Trump has a tendency to buy trouble (one is one pretty solid ground to say that almost all of President Trump’s “problems” vis-à-vis the political establishment, the news media, Congress, and his friends and his opponents alike, are at their foundation self-inflicted) and this instance is no exception. He has created outrage less for the things he has done than by the way he has done them and what he has said while doing them. He is impulsive and rash, and still has not learned that Republicans cannot count on much support from the mainstream media, academia, the political establishment, or the entertainment world. Mistakes or missteps from Democrats may be downplayed or ignored by those folks, but if from President Trump, they are taken as proof of irrationality or incompetence. Who knows, maybe they are – but President Obama could get away with equally incompetent or irrational behaviors because he had a deep well of support from those folks listed above; and they also tend to give support to Hillary Clinton that makes their support of President Obama look weak by comparison. President Trump should have figured that out a long time ago, and the sooner he learns to watch what he says and how he explains things, the better off he will be. It's pretty safe to bet that the media will do their best to extinguish the embers of a scandal in a Democratic administration but will fan them into flame in a Republican administration. Anyway – the Democrats did not like Mr. Comey’s “interference” in the election. There are many objections (from both sides) to how Mr. Comey handled Mrs. Clinton’s secret server/email problems, but his explanation for publicly addressing the question again 11 days before the election is pretty solid, we think: the investigation into Anthony Weiner’s attempts to send naughty texts also revealed many of Mrs. Clinton’s emails, previously undisclosed, on his computer. Mr. Comey was faced with a stark and unenviable choice: to make the news public or to conceal it. He would have been taking sides either way, but by making it public, the electorate had a chance to decide for itself if it was a disqualifying factor. Had it kept it concealed, the electorate would not have known, and thus Mrs. Clinton would have had a major advantage of being able to avoid responsibility for something she and her top aide had done. He did the right thing in that instance.
And that is why Mrs. Clinton has blamed Mr. Comey for her defeat, and why she would surely have dismissed him as FBI Director. And, Republicans would have seen that dismissal as politically-motivated revenge, or as an effort to remove a dangerous critic. Gee, that’s just how the Democrats are viewing Mr. Comey’s dismissal by President Trump. And do you know what? Both of them may be right. On the other hand, it may be a simple case of a President removing someone in whom he no longer has confidence. Comments are closed.
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