Words I never thought I'd say

Where are you when we need you, John Dean?

[Those are the words I never, ever, thought I would say.]

I am a fan of only a few things from the 70s. I do not miss those garish blue and green countertops that my parents had in the 70s. I still think Avocado is a great thing to eat but a lousy color for a refrigerator. If you ask me, I will tell you that I'm not a fan of disco (and I'm always surprised at how many disco songs I know the words to).

But I love All the President's Men and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

I love, love, LOVE them.

And I find it interesting that both, in their own ways, are affecting how I view the world right now. One of my earlier memories is asking my father what a "Watergate" was and noting that every time the word was bandied about, he seemed agitated. (For the record, in my limited brain, I thought a "watergate" must be a gate on a fence that someone tied a sprinkler to. Why this would be upsetting was beyond my ken at that point.) My father insisted on giving his only child the world as it was, not a watered-down version, but he made a point to bring it to a level that a 3-year-old could understand. So I learned that at the very least, our President had gone back on his word to lead us, the American people, honestly. At most, he had broken the law and would have to go to jail.

Walter Cronkite was a big feature of my early childhood because of Watergate. [Does anyone else hear his voice and have their blood pressure decrease? Just curious, because he's good for a 6 point drop for me, no joke.]

I came to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy much later in my life--within the last 15 years or so--but it also affects how I view the intelligence community. Granted, that is about British intelligence, but was written by a lifelong officer of what we coin MI-6 (who had a forced career change thanks to Kim Philby, the Russian spy who leaked his name along with many others, forcing them into retirement from The Service) and was written by a man who clearly knew the inner workings of that environment. The novel centers around the unmasking of a Russian mole (based upon Philby) within the trappings of MI-6, at the highest levels.

Today's events make me believe that, indeed, we might not have truly learned the lessons of those books and therefore, history is going to make good on its promise of repeating.

Did Russia try to influence the election? The Director of the FBI went on the record about an ongoing investigation to say "Yes." There is precedent for telling the American public about such investigations, even though they are classified, and some of that harkens back to All the President's Men. 

I will tell you that, at least of this writing, I find James Comey to be a man better suited to the Director position at the FBI than L. Patrick Gray, who was acting Director of the FBI at the time of the Watergate scandal, and whose decidedly non-Hooverian way of doing things gave rise (inadvertently) to "Deep Throat," Bob Woodward's secret source in the government. (Had W. Mark Felt been in charge of the FBI when Watergate went down, history would be written differently.) Gray was an FBI outsider whom Nixon liked and respected and also was a Nixon appointee. Felt didn't trust Gray to hold the FBI to the same rigor that Felt perceived Hoover did (in both good and bad ways, as Clarence M. Kelley would eventually have to clean that house).

Comey also comes from a background that is more DOJ-oriented than FBI-cultured, but he was appointed by a man he does not work for to a position that he has no intention of leaving. He also has more Department of Justice experience and in particular experience as an investigator. Comey will also be helped in the court of public opinion by having a similar look to Oliver North: tall, dark-haired, decent-looking. People loved Oliver North in the 80s because he was forthright and photogenic at the same time, even if just about everything he did was illegal. Comey doesn't have that last little problem--he is painfully aware of how much everything he does (and by extension, how the FBI comports itself) is under scrutiny and I think he knows he's got to be as above-board about everything as possible. I'm sure he's been tempted to physically squash some of these morons (Comey is 6'8"; he can likely squash garden gnomes with one foot) but has so far resisted.

However, Comey isn't going to give Congressional investigators in a public hearing answers to their blatantly partisan questions just so they can feel good about themselves. They know he can't answer. It's not like they are asking expecting an answer. They want their voice on the public record, every last one of them, as saying something important or of value (I'm looking at you, Nunes). Of course the Director of the FBI can't answer those questions because at least one-third were speculative at best, another third revolved around specific people, and the rest were regarding classified material. That these men answered questions at all today--and they did both answer a few questions and make specific statements--is a testament to the fact that both Comey and Mike Rogers, his NSA counterpart, believe that NOT doing so was more damaging to America as a whole.

I want you to think about that for a minute.

In a post-sound-byte, post-15-minutes-of-fame, fully-Internet-integrated culture, where the whims of the American people can be shaped in only a few weeks by outside forces if ANY of this is to be believed, Jim Comey believed that it was in the best interest of America as a whole to confirm to the American people that they likely were manipulated at the time of the election and that the man that won the electoral college vote and people in his camp are being investigated regarding their contact on some level with a country that has publicly shown devotion to the dismantling of this nation.

Jim Comey publicly stated that the American intelligence communities and the Russian intelligence communities believed that there was little way Hillary Clinton would lose the election in November.

Read that one again.

The FBI thought it was a foregone conclusion that Clinton was their next boss.

And calm down if you think that's why Comey went public with the allegations regarding Clinton's servers in October. He didn't think that would cost her the election and he just said so on the public record without coming out and saying it. It was fact, as far as the intelligence community was concerned,  that Clinton had the presidency locked up.

Because Comey wasn't the only one with the intelligence regarding the servers and emails, and had he left it up to the Republicans to leak it (it's documented that Giuliani also had that intelligence and he was going to release it), then his position would be weakened and there could be discussion regarding collusion on his end, that Obama was trying to tie Comey's hands and give the election to Hillary. After all, both Comey and Rogers both agreed that all the intelligence pointed to an historic Clinton win, so he had to come forward but he didn't think it would end up doing what it did. I think he fears that he was played by Russian forces on that end, too, because of the timing. And perhaps so.

Somewhere, right now, in the White House, there's someone who knows all the facts. Someone who knows that what has been happening in Trump-land is illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong. And that someone needs to step forward, now. In today's hearing, the Republicans made it clear that they didn't want anyone in the government to "hide behind" the press, the way W. Mark Felt chose to expose the Nixon administration through Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Comey, too, agreed that DOJ leaks (although many have been wrong in their substance, according to Comey) need to stop because they will undermine any investigation, and this man wants to get it right, especially if he unwittingly helped get this nation to where it is at this moment--divided and scared on all sides.

But that someone--this administration's John Dean--needs to come forward, now, and cop to what's been happening, on the record, to both the DOJ and the legislative branch. And it needs to happen soon.

I'd like to sleep again at night.