The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of my favorite books in that particular genre of literature – drama, horror, gothic thriller – modern entertainment hasn’t dealt with especially well. Virtually every modern adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has removed the substance in the original and instead given us outsized caricatures where the main characters used to be.
Life Imitates Art
Oscar Wilde never knew how right he was when he observed correctly that life imitates art. In 2017, political life definitely seems to be imitating some of the more iconic entertainment art of our time – The Matrix, Hunger Games, and the Kardashians in particular.
Take for instance the wiretapping story. There was a time not too long ago when celebrity journalists weren’t trying to out-Kardashian each other. Not so now. That’s why coverage of the wiretapping story has largely been about an inch deep and as wide as a six-second soundbite. The blow-dried name-brands, often with resumes that include deep connections to Clintons and Cuomos (among others), can’t let their coverage take on an investigative quality and thus chip away at the Obama legacy now can they?
And no, Barack Obama isn’t akin to President Snow in the Hunger Games. Frankly, Obama was a) too stupid and b) too lazy to operate like Panem’s dear leader. Obama was merely the vehicle to take an agenda to places it had never been while presenting a positive to image to all but his detractors.
The Man Behind the Curtain
If today’s flavor or journalism wasn’t celebrity oriented, media coverage would be wall to wall with what is perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge in generations: the existence of the Deep State. Whether Trump Tower was wiretapped or not – and evidence surely suggests it was – it’s blatantly obvious that bureaucrats beholden to Barack Obama occupy positions in the federal government and that they are willing to use them against the current administration.
The only thing that currently separates us from those crazy third world countries where mobs riot in the streets is that our rioters are bought and paid for, and they don’t know what they are rioting about. And, after our rioters riot they know they can go home and binge watch Netflix. All the other attributes of a banana republic are firmly in place courtesy of the Deep State. The only thing we really can’t be sure of is who runs the Deep State.
James Comey?
FBI Director James Comey’s name seems to pop up with increasing regularity and at unusual intervals. He’s recently said two very unusual things: Americans don’t have a “right to absolute privacy”, and “you’re stuck with me for another six and a half years”. Those two statements follow his unusual public suggestion that the Justice Department refute President Trump’s claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped. And his unprecedented, and mind-boggling, statements and conduct related to investigations surrounding Hillary Clinton’s illegal server.
Then there are Comey’s ties to the Clinton and to Preet Bharara – famous for being ousted as a U.S. Attorney, but also a former aide to Senator Chuck Schumer. (A May 2016 item in The New Yorker written by Jeffrey Toobin details Bharara’s work for Schumer and his work with Comey quite well.)
Know what there isn’t? Any reference to James Comey in any of the many document dumps made by Wikileaks.
So Wikileaks…
Certainly the Wikileaks people have something on Comey. Why haven’t they released it? It would be too large a leap to say that Comey is at the top of the Deep State, and that the minions all take their orders from him.
It isn’t a leap to say that Comey is near the top, and probably knows whatever group of people perform that role in the Deep State’s organizational infrastructure.
There are days in which political life makes one wonder whether we all have collectively swallowed the red pill or the blue pill. Maybe it’s time we sobered up, came to our senses, and demanded Comey explain himself.
Comey’s peers and lesser officials have been relieved of their positions for far less than the Director has said and done.
Image: Modified from image by: Rich Girard; CC BY-SA 2.0; https://www.flickr.com/photos/girardatlarge/
28048181871/
