Except Nate Silver isn’t a Democrat. He describes himself as a small “l” libertarian. His writings sure have whipped up certain Democrats to jump on the “if only…” bandwagon, though.
The good that could be done is:
a) to remind ourselves of the objective fact that Comey broke FBI guidelines (by publicizing the Clinton investigation, while carefully following the guidelines in concealing the Trump investigation, thereby protecting Trump), and
b) to give us the opportunity to ask whether or not it’s in the interest of Americans if FBI directors abandon the decades-old guidelines about keeping out of elections, and instead, as Comey did, intervene.
This is not a trivial matter. If the assumption becomes that it’s fine for FBI directors, in defiance of existing guidelines, to make announcements about some investigations but keep quiet about others, then we are assuming it’s fine for the FBI to openly act as an instrument of policy for one political party or another.
That’s the issue, here. Naturally some, intent on their Hillary-hatefest, want to ignore the issue and concentrate on the lovely juicy hate. But less emotionally-driven observers realize that what Comey did has implications for the long term–not just for that one election.
It’s more than a guideline. It is almost certainly a Hatch Act violation. That is not a crime but can result in administrative punishment (which, of course, never happened here).
Except none of those things is connected to whether the Comey letter tipped the election. In my view, even if Hillary would have lost regardless, we should still have a lot of questions about Comey’s conduct and probably take some action to prevent these kinds of disclosures in the future. Whether it tipped the election makes zero difference in that.
Good point.
Well, it does make the practical difference that many Republicans will be disposed to reward Comey when he’s finished his FBI term and looking for a nice lucrative private-sector position–or even support for a run of his own for elective office.
And conduct that gets rewarded is noticed by others, and is therefore more likely to be defended, normalized, and accepted.
I like how U.S. elections are such a shitshow that both candidates were under FBI investigation.
Comey says he made a bad decision when there was not a good one available, that much I can buy. But his phrasing of it makes me suspicious of bias, even unrecognized bias, “innocent” bias, if you will.
He reveals, Hillary loses. He has influenced the election, and that’s bad. He doesn’t, Hillary wins, the truth comes out, and that, in his opinion would be worse. An arguable premise, and one that defies resolution.
BUT! (I like big “buts”, can’t deny it…)
He says that either way he moved, he would be doing something not really kosher. But in one case, he is acting in direct refusal of policy as dictated by his boss. Which makes his alleged concern with Da Rules a bit flimsy. The rules say he should follow the policy of Justice Dept. and he did not.
Yet, he claims that those are the same rules that kept him from revealing the Russia shit! Mr. Comey, if you go to the Piggly Wiggly to get gander sauce, buying something marked “goose sauce” is ok, because they are the same.
And last, but not least…if he had no choice but to bend the rules (and in one case, bending more than the other by defying protocol and policy), why in the name of all that is holy would he bend it more to assist the election of an ignorant lout?
He didn’t know? Please. I can buy wrong, I can’t buy stupid.
I can go with “not proven”, but “not guilty” is out of the question.
Hillary deleting her emails cost her the election. They were all set to go after her with Bengazi which had no legs and then she just gave them the email scandal. It perfectly reinforced the negative opinions people held of her. There is no question that she was hiding something, and she made it impossible to prove it wasn’t anything of consequence. If you want to say Comey was an asshole that’s fine, but that one action of his did not cost her the election. Even without the email scandal she could have easily lost for calling people deplorable or threatening to end their jobs, not to mention the disinclination to put another Clinton in the Oval Office after the experience with a second Bush.
It cost her some votes at a critical time. Absolutely.
Are those California votes, or Wisconsin votes? You see, the way the Electoral College works…hey, quit pushing!..not cool, no shoving, I’m posting here!..hey!..
I don’t know. A few more votes in Milwaukee, and she wins that city, and probably the county, and likely the state, and possibly…
Instead, there will literally be, in our future, a Trump Library.
The Comey letter completely changed Trump’s demeanor. He was down and unhinged and acting as if he had already lost for about a month before hand. The letter completely re-energized him in a very obvious and significant way. There is no way pre-letter Trump had any chance of winning, you can’t go around acting like you already lost and expect people to come out to vote for you.
I’m with Kevin Drum on this one. Comey isn’t trying to be a partisan hack, but he’s being played for one. The Republican Attack Machine has grown into a juggernaut and Comey doesn’t have the balls to stand up to it.
Claiming that Clinton’s loss is due to the Comey letter is like a claiming a dude who has a $1000/month car payment, $3000/month apartment, and spends $500/weekend partying and another $500/week on clothes, plus $500/week on fancy dinners overdrew his bank account because you delayed him getting back to his car, and he had to pay $2.50 instead of the usual $1.50 for parking one night. Even if that last single dollar technically resulted in an overdraft, it’s pretty obvious that the other $10,000/month was the real problem.
Nm
Corey Lewsandowski, Trump’s original campaign manager said much the same thing as well. He added it helped get Trump back “on message”.
This.
If this were football, Hillary would have been favored to win by 5 touchdowns.
Blaming Comey is like that heavily favored team losing by a field goal, then blaming the refs for one bad call.
Wait, what? “Heavily favored”? According to who? The Nerd Net had her a couple, three points up, is that what “heavily favored” means to you?
But she shouldn’t have been just " a couple, three points up." Based off of who she was and who Trump was, the lead should have been far wider.
Hillary herself: “Why aren’t I 50 (percentage) points ahead?”
I view the Comey letter as just another extension of the Republicans’ use of their control of Congress to create scandals out of thin air over Democrats and the Clintons in particular. The letter, like Clinton’s blowjob, was essentially unimportant to average Americans’ everyday concerns and completely unrelated to the original reason for the investigation that would last forever.
Clinton’s loss is partially the culmination of a 24-year-old smear campaign.
That shouldn’t have, by itself, caused her loss. But it certainly contributes. Everyone knew she was weak as a result of this smear campaign. Add in sexism where an ill-prepared male looks like a decent option relative to an extremely well-prepared woman. Add in racism, Islamophobia, the fear of people who are stupid and watching their stupid life vanish into a mist of Oxycontin. Top it off with the fact this combination of cognitive malfunctions is found in people who are the most numerous Americans. The result is an opportunity for Trump.
The thing that made all of these factors relevant in the end is Clinton didn’t say anything positive to the people Trump was talking to wanted to hear. You can’t write anyone off in a campaign and you can’t assume anyone’s vote. Democrats need to learn to win every election or put everything into losing. This strategic nonsense they do is the reason we end up with all this ignorant Republican trash in office.