{"id":9266,"date":"2017-05-15T16:58:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T16:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pascaleditions.com\/peterthomassimon\/?p=9266"},"modified":"2017-05-16T18:58:17","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T18:58:17","slug":"the-comey-apocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pascaleditions.com\/peterthomassimon\/the-comey-apocalypse\/","title":{"rendered":"The Comey Apocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Sullivan soiled himself awhile ago writing\u00a0a dread harbinger of journalistic things to come in the form of a gargantuan\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0New York Magazine<\/em>. Not that it was a mediocre performance. Rhetorically, it was stellar. The political blogging icon lashed into Trump not merely with truly unparalleled venom — no small target when every Trump assault piece strives for 11 out of 10 on that score — but from a transcendent historical perspective that seemed at times near-Spenglerian. American democracy, Constitutional forms, Enlightenment values, progressive hopes — all were doomed, doomed<\/em>. The entire Western project, European civilization, History itself was collapsing into ever grosser and cruder fascism each\u00a0vertiginous time Trump opened his pursed orange mouth. Athens after Pericles, the Rome of the Caesars, the barbarous Dark Ages, were evoked and dismissed as beneath comparison to the looming shambling Godzilla that was The Donald. Democracy was choking on its very Enlightenment entrails. \u00a0The election of the New York State realtor and reality TV star would bring a darkness upon mankind that centuries, nay, millennia, would not eradicate.<\/p>\n

It was not that Trump had not gotten bashed before. After all, press detestation follows Trump as the hart panteth after the water brook. Sullivan’s article, however, was one of the first outbreaks of what we have now come to know as Trump Derangement Syndrome(TM). It wasn’t simply that Sullivan disliked Trump, or thought you should vote for Clinton instead; it was the flat-out description of the rise of The Donald as “an extinction-level event…<\/em>” \u00a0 If Trump won, it wouldn’t be a mere four years in the outhouse for the Dems. \u00a0No,\u00a0all life on the planet would come to an end! \u00a0<\/em>(Add several more exclamation marks to get the full flavor.)<\/p>\n

One fails to understand the contemporary \u200bmedia-academic complex\u200b if one misses this apocalyptic tinge coloring nearly all Trump commentary nowadays coming the left. Its root assumptions are simple. Nothing Trump \u200bsays or does, \u200bnothing he has ever<\/em> said or ever<\/em> done\u200b,\u200b nothing he\u00a0\u200bwill or can<\/em>\u00a0ever \u200bsay or \u200bdo\u200b,\u200b is right, reasonable, sane, or good. \u00a0Everything \u200babout him\u200b is pure evil in every possible way. Every policy he proposes is belched up from Hell itself, vicious and doomed, and if it appears to be working, it’s an optical illusion and you should check your privilege for white supremacy, honky. \u00a0Apocalyptic extinction-level-event collapse is right around the corner, for Trump simply cannot do, say, think or be<\/em> right in any way whatsoever. \u00a0His motivations are as vile as his IQ, and even his sentience (though not his literal insanity) is debatable: \u200bhe is a metaphysical precipitate of pure malevolence besides which Lucifer, Auschwitz\u200b, T\u200bhe Black Plague\u200b, and the heat death of the universe pale into insignificance.<\/p>\n

Sullivan, it must be said, has never quite equalled that earlier tirade. And\u00a0if the piece were entirely sincere, one imagines Sullivan would have wresting gibbering to the nearest asylum to await Death’s quick and bony finger to alight on Western Civ. \u00a0Sadly not: apparently the staff hustle him out every now and again to lament this Trump initiative or that, or to wail generally about the existential anguish or life in the Trumpenreich.<\/p>\n

Yet\u00a0his latest outing, a piece in New York Magazine<\/em> about the firing of James Comey, is of unexpected interest. Unsurprisingly, It opens with several paragraphs of the usual litany of insult and innuendo, openings predictable as though dictated by algorithm by now. One citation suffices:<\/p>\n

“There are appointments \u2014 or a stunning lack of them across the executive branch \u2014 that reflect amateurishness and incompetence outside the norm.\u200b”\u200b<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u200bf Trump picks ’em, it shows\u200b amateurishness and incompetence outside the norm\u200b; if Trump doesn’t<\/em> pick ’em, \u200b it shows amateurishness and incompetence outside the norm\u200b. Which substandard appointments specifically? Who cares? We don’t need no stinkin’ specifics. Why bother keeping to journalistic standards or even standards of common civility when discussing Trump, “this malign buffoon,” as the well-mannered Mr. Sullivan refers to our Head of State?
\n\u200b
\n\u200bThere is a really interesting passage after<\/em> the initial tirade, though. Confesses Sullivan:\u200b<\/p>\n

\u200bComey may have made mistakes; he may have had a Messiah complex; he may go down in history as a self-righteous prick who interfered in an election. But he is obviously and transparently independent \u2014 the key criterion for any FBI director. He has angered both Democrats and Republicans over the years \u2014 and this very ability to stand up to the Bush administration and the Clinton campaign at critical moments made him someone you could count on to get to the bottom of the Russia affair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u200b\u200bLet’s review that, eh, gang?<\/p>\n