"Hi, The Times? It's me, #ComeyMemo."

Is the #ComeyMemo out yet? Or is the unclassified document still paying its way better as a hashtag while phoning in selected excerpts to the NY Times? Former FBI Director James Comey might have brought it up during Senate questioning – had he truly believed he was being leaned on, that is. His earliest predecessor, on the other hand, had a thing for keeping secret files, just in case anyone forgot who really runs things around here. These politicians sometimes get a real chip on their shoulder about being “elected by the voters” and “accountable to the people.”

Trump’s a buffoon, but the other gal dished state secrets and was much better at it, so I think we’re still ahead. But we have to wait for #ComeyMemo to show himself, and bring all his friends, before drawing any conclusions other than it makes for an exciting news cycle. There is cause for skepticism at a media that a week ago was reporting Trump's ice-cream cone as news:

The only takers for calling this a high crime and misdemeanor was Leon Kass, who might actually have been able to offer interesting cultural commentary to this otherwise waste of the viewing public's time. 

What increasingly worries me in the swamp Trump was elected to drain is the part cryptically referred to as “the intelligence community." Frankly, I'm not clear if this is the same thing as what we've recently been calling the "deep state," but it seems at least that's where much of it lives. I keep this Bill Kristol quote bookmarked to remind me to beware the "establishment conservatives" – they’re establishment so far ahead of being conservative it’s doubtful there’s time left in the day to be conservative at all:

Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) February 14, 2017

Why would anyone prefer the deep state to anything? As Mark Steyn explains it: "When you step back and look at the ever more frenzied hamster wheel, what's really going on? Trump was elected on a pledge to "drain the swamp", and the swamp is finding, in Chuck Schumer's memorable formulation, "six ways from Sunday at getting back at you" - in order to ensure that the swamp remains undrained, that nothing changes, that Big Government gets bigger, and twenty trillion in debt rises to thirty, and the armies of the undocumented continue to pour across the border..."


 We’re not stuck in the middle between clowns and jokers. That’s the pollyannish view that muses, “if only we could have someone competent.” It’s the competent ones that should strike fear in the heart of a free people. Political enemies and buffoons share at least one virtue in common: they’re transparent about being enemies and buffoons. It’s the ones who call themselves friends that are in position to put the knife in. “My God, this is a hell of a job!" said President Harding to William Allen White. " I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my Goddamn friends, White, they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!”


Trump, buffoon that he is, has gotten ensnared in D.C. scandals with “deep state” types leaking all over the place, media types spinning it, all furthering their own agendas – after all, “[a] leaker isnot a disinterested provider of information, but a character in the drama, withhis own motivations” – with the end result being the status quo stays in place. “You can't see the tsunami for the leaks.” The only thing not leaking is the swamp.