And so it came to pass that FBI Director James Comey loogied a watermelon Rancher (this is a thoughtful and not-biased reading of what happened, but I'm an angry partisan, so...) at the House GOP, who just freaking ant-swarmed. (Because they would.) Their line: The case is reopened (that's not how that wor....) because new evidence about Hillary' Clinton's server (that's Secretary Clinton's, wait, it doesn't even have to do with her serv...) had electronic congress with the devices once owned by (drumroll) Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin who might have had stuff forwarded to his laptop because it was hooked up to a printer because for some godforsaken reason, olds like stuff printed out on paper to read.
But what we do know is that the additional emails weren't stored on Clinton's server nor did she send them, and wow! I really don't find myself as interested in the story here, as in the timing. Like Senator Shelby, I'm all like:
"While I am pleased that the FBI is re-opening this case in light of new information, it is imperative that the Bureau immediately evaluate the material to complete this investigation," Sen. Richard Shelby wrote in a letter to Comey on Friday. "The American people are electing their next Commander-in-Chief only days from now, and they deserve to know the conclusion of your review prior to Election Day. Let me be clear: This should be your utmost priority."As the kids say-- "This. Exactly this." This is a story too close to the election for them to dawdle--there is either a "there, there", or there isn't. Now, there is some argument that protocol would have actually suggested slow-walking this one until after the election--and it looks like Comey really struggled with what to do here:
Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.
So--notifying Congress this minute wasn't an urgent issue in black and white, and even though the investigation has turned up nothing that seems objectionable, they decided this was the right time to drop it like it's hot. For... reasons. (M'kay, Comey, but that seems a little "muh virtue" from you.)
Oh. I have questions. Now, I'm already decided for Herself. And I don't know who this intel would prejudice for or against out of people already voting or decided. And the way I see it, you wouldn't really sway indies with this kind of thing--they are maybe political skeptics so you just suppress them and leave us with the base of each group.
Which I think favors Clinton. This feels like so much work for so little payoff that I can't imagine Comey was trying on some kind of political strategery, maybe in violation of the Hatch Act. It looks more like he's just really stupid at messaging, because he presumably understands the relevant law. But that is definitely a form of incompetence at his level, and doesn't reflect organizational best practices. But anyway--his handling was a boner, but we can blame this on the Weiner. 2016 is a year that might just be blank pages in the history books. What do we tell the daggone children?
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