I know I said I wasn’t going to write about politics for a while, and I really won’t much, but the Statement for the Record (pdf) of James Comey before his Senate Select Committee on Intelligence appearance tomorrow is amazing. Amazing.
I don’t just mean that the content is amazing, which it is. The President of the United States keeps trying to get the FBI Director alone in a room. The FBI Director has to explain to the Attorney General how inappropriate that is. The demands for personal loyalty. The meetings with the leadership team to try to figure out what the hell to do about the President’s top advisors being investigated as possible Russian agents. The meetings with the leadership team to try to figure out what the hell to do about the President. The cloud over the Presidency. It’s all amazing.
But what really gets me about this text is how gd-damned funny it is.
This statement is an astonishing goldmine of catchphrases. The nightly news shows must be giddy, not to mention the sketch shows. It is almost completely unbelievable, except that it happens to be true. This thing is jam-packed with things that I can only imagine today’s teenagers cracking each other up with, thirty years from now.
We had that thing, you know.
The door by the grandfather clock.
We looked at each other in silence.
“I need loyalty.” “You will always get honesty.”
I did not reply or ask him what he meant by “that thing”.
The set-up made me uneasy.
This had not been my practice in the past.
I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed.
Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.
He is a good guy.
I mean, if there is a thirty years from now.
That was the last time I spoke with President Trump,,
-Vardibidian.