Posted on 05/15/2018 7:24:03 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell
Monday, May 14, 2018 The Incredible Narcissism of Hillary and Comey Posted by Daniel Greenfield Hillary Clinton is 54. Former FBI boss James Comey is 68. But they have one important thing in common.
Both Clinton and Comey put themselves first.
Hillary launched her spiteful book tour without any regard for what it would do to her party. No amount of frustration from her fellow Democrats would dissuade her from cashing in and lashing out at her enemies. And no amount of frustration from fellow FBI agents, including Comeys own Bureau confidants, could dissuade him from cashing in and lashing out at Trump across a thousand talk shows.
Hillary Clintons book tour damaged Dem prospects. Comeys book tour harms the investigation. Its entire existence violates FBI rules. Much as Clintons book hurt her likely Dem successors.
But both bitter book tours are the work of selfish, spiteful and egotistical people who dont care how much damage they do to the allies who trusted them as long as they make money and settle scores.
Its only fitting that Comey is using the same excuse that Hillary did for his leaks of classified information. It wasnt classified when I sent it. Its also inevitable that Comey, like Clinton, takes refuge in the same sort of legalistic technicalities to justify his wrongdoing. Did he leak the documents? No, he gave them to someone else to pass on to the media. Is that leaking? No, because he was already a private citizen.
Meanwhile Comey goes on claiming ignorance of the origins of the Fusion GPS dossier.
"When did you learn that the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign had funded Christopher Steeles work?" FOX News's Bret Baier asked Comey.
Like Obama, Comey claimed to have only found out about the dossier's true origins from the media. After being pressed by Baier, he finally declared, "I wanted to know what I knew."
The technical term for that is, Plausible deniability.
Or the most honorable and principled plausible deniability that $10 million can buy.
Comey, like Clinton, always sounds like hes answering questions at a deposition, even when hes at a media interview, and his replies are littered with lawyerese like, Not to my recollection and my understanding.
Spot which understanding answers in a television interview came from Comey and Clinton.
"Well, my understanding of what happened is that the State Department had e-mails that they gave to the committee that was formed."
"Okay, my understanding was the activity was begun, that, that Steele was hired to look into was first funded by Republicans."
Yes, they both speak the same way.
My understanding means that Im going to put forward something that is misleading while limiting my liability for doing so because I can claim that I misunderstood its actual meaning. Not to my recollection means that Im going to lie, but if you catch me, Ill claim that I forgot about it. Oops.
Or as Comey put it, when asked if hed told Obama about the origins of the Clinton-Steele dossier.
No, not to my recollection.
Comeys recollections have been known to change over time. As have Hillary Clintons.
Mr. Comey, like Mrs. Clinton, doesnt know anything, whether hes testifying in the Senate or to CNN. But when a public official answers, Not to my recollection and my understanding in TV interviews, he or she is reflexively answering questions in a way that avoids legal liability even when there isnt any.
Comey and Clinton both suffer from the same brand of legalistic paranoia of career cover-uppers. Its why Comey circulated the Clinton draft among people like Strzok and got him to do the dirty work. Its why Comey passed on a memo to his pal, who was also a lawyer, to be leaked to the media. (Expect that fake attorney-client relationships confidentiality to be honored, unlike that of Trump and his actual lawyer. But much like that of Hillary Clinton and her non-protected relationship with Cheryl Mills.)
Every decision that Comey made was done to protect his own career. He allowed Obama and Hillary allies to run their version of Watergate against Trump as long as his own fingerprints werent on it. Comey wanted to benefit from an election rigging without ever being accountable for it. Letting McCabe get his hands dirty would allow him to claim that he didnt know anything about what was going on.
When McCabes antics threatened that state of affairs, Comey authored the Weiner letter. He didnt believe the letter would stop Hillary from winning, but it would protect him in case she lost.
And it did. For a little while.
But Comey couldnt keep balancing the impossible demands of Democrats to bring down Trump, with Trumps demands to be informed of what was going on. And so Comey tried to weasel out of it by leaking materials to the media and making it clear that there would be a price to pay for firing him.
Comey wasnt loyal to a higher duty. His higher duty was always to his career. Just like Hillary.
A Higher Loyalty is a shameless effort by Comey to spin his self-serving actions as honorable. But a principled and honorable man would have wanted to know where the Steele dossier came from.
"I wanted to know what I knew, is the answer of a cynically dishonorable man. The sort of man who would kick off his comeback by posing with the Statue of Liberty after violating all that she stands for.
Honor and loyalty to Comey are just more forms of plausible deniability. Duty and principle are another version of, My understanding and Not to my recollection. To paraphrase, Walter Sobchak, "Say what you want about the Democrats, but at least it's an ethos." McCabe, Strzok and the rest of the gang believed in something. James Comey only ever believed in covering the bureau of his behind.
Thats why he collided with Hillary Clinton. He couldnt commit all the way to helping her, because they were two of a kind. Hillary would sell out anyone. And so would Comey. Just ask McCabe.
What happens when an unstoppable careerist hits an immovable bureaucrat?
Comey wouldnt put Hillary ahead of his career. And Hillary wont put the Democrats ahead of her grievances. Thats why her people are taking potshots at Comey even though hes helping the Dems.
Neither Comey nor Clinton have any higher loyalties. Their books are written in praise of themselves.
Egomaniacs and narcissists have no sense of proportion. Their own happiness is the greater good that the world revolves around. It takes an egomaniac to produce A Higher Loyalty or What Happened.
Both books are fueled by a grandiose conviction in the moral heroism of their authors. But that delusion is constantly being undermined by their self-serving lawyerly defenses of their actions.
And by the final fact that neither Comey nor Clinton can conceive of a good greater than themselves.
Stripped of their pretensions, What Happened and A Higher Loyalty lay out a quest by two Washington D.C. insiders for their careers and everyone they blame for losing their jobs. Comey and Clinton want us to believe that their Russian conspiracy theories somehow ennoble and justify them.
They dont.
The Russian conspiracy theory has always been a self-serving effort by the Clintons and their government allies to justify a ruthless campaign against their political opponents. Its tautological politics dress up the self-serving abuses of the conspiracy theorys inventors and promoters as patriotism. They justify any assault and abuse to defend against a threat invented by Clinton and promoted by Comey.
When Comey replies that he didnt want to know that the Steele dossier originated with the Clinton campaign, its not the answer of an honorable man, but of a coward who didnt want to know whose dirty work he was doing. An honorable man isnt someone who can tweet someone elses quotes about integrity, its a man who is accountable for his own deeds.
Honor isnt found in how harshly you treat your political opponents, but how sternly your view yourself.
Clinton and Comey take responsibility for nothing and assign responsibility for everything. Even when they talk about accepting responsibility, they mean theyre about to blame it on someone else.
A Higher Loyalty and What Happened share a common thesis. Its someone elses fault.
Hillary blamed Comey. Now its Comeys turn to shift the blame.
Both of them deserve each other. America doesnt deserve them. Or deserve what theyve done to it.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the following link at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
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It is in the nature of tyrants to believe they are indispensable.
Comey is also a narcissist, although I'm not sure at this point whether he is a clinically diagnosable narcissist at the level that Hillary is. What people need to realize is that in order for people like Hillary and Comey to fulfill their need to be ‘special’, and ‘important’, and ‘better than’ etc., the rest of us have to lose something. It always works out this way. How willing should any of us be to give up anything for the sake of the egos of people like them?
“It is in the nature of tyrants to believe they are indispensable.”
Very well and succinctly said. Ego is the root of all evil - not money.
Please add me to this list.
Comey is a narcissist, youre right. He has a Messiah Complex. He is a narcissist of the cerebral type as opposed to somatic. Same as Obama.
I dont believe Hillary is a narcissist for several reasons. Shes a better fit for sociopath (antisocial disorder) or true psychopath.
Two good articles today.
(Odd, how clear things are when you DON’T listen to the networked news of ABCNNBCBS.)
Doesn’t mean squadoosh if the GOP doesn;t do a damn thing.
“I dont believe Hillary is a narcissist for several reasons.”
I’ve had too much experience with narcissists, and Hillary is textbook.
-—Juan McCain is an exception as both money and ego blinded him eons ago.
“...they have one important thing in common...”
Yeah, both Comey and Hillary are being ALLOWED to commit Federal crimes freely. NO ONE un DC cares enough to do anything about it...
Except maybe get TV time for themselves while whining about it..
In any NORMAL, civilized, law-abiding world, these two would already have been serving lonnnnnnnnnng prison sentences.
If I had done what they’ve done, I WOULD ALREADY HAVE BEEN IN PRISON.
Excellent run down. I would add, however, that James Comey has never killed someone for personal gain. Or had that person killed.
Hillary would not get her hands dirty with “ wetwork, “ as they say.
p
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