Why is this man smiling (if that’s what he’s doing)?
[This is the stuff I refrained from writing about this weekend.]
I write fantasy novels. And if I write ’em too far out, the readers will say “Oh, pshaw!”, or something to that effect, and just stop reading.
So I wouldn’t dare write something like, “And just when it seemed Hillary was home free, hundreds of thousands of her emails turn up in Anthony Weiner’s laptop, where they were found by FBI agents investigating his lewd communications with a teenage girl; and her whole campaign gets derailed by Weiner the Wanker…” Nope, I couldn’t put that in a fantasy novel. It’d be too.. well, fantastic.
And FBI Director James Comey does the equivalent of a man running back into a burning building, after escaping the fire by the sky of his teeth, in shouting from the housetops that he’s re-opening the Clinton investigation–and I’m not sure any of the current explanations of this extraordinary behavior convince me. Back in the summer, he let Hillary skate, gave her a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for activities that anyone else would’ve been imprisoned for… and now he puts himself in harm’s way? Just because his colleagues at the FBI despise him for his cowardice? Because even his wife despises him for it? Because no one at the Justice Dept. will even nod to him anymore when they pass him in the halls? I dunno… I’m just not sure those explanations work.
Maybe John Mortimer (Rumpole of the Baily), Lawrence Sterne (Tristram Shandy), or Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles) could write this. Yeah, I can see it as a Tristram Shandy episode, and practically hear Uncle Toby whistling “Lillibulero” as Clinton tries to shove the whole thing off on The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and naughty Russian hackers.
But I’m much too timid to write a mess like this!