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Imagine those moments on the tarmac, with the whole gang still cloistered inside the plane, as they huddled around screens, reading information that the rest of the world had been digesting for dozens of minutes, close to an hour even. The Clinton campaign-- the front runner for President of the United States and her entire staff-- flew through their own version of Serling's Twilight Zone today, an unexplained vortex of information. I imagine it had been peaceful, or at least as peaceful as those birds had it, the ones that were trapped in the eye of Hurricane Matthew a few weeks back, as it rounded Florida. Networks were reading Comey's letter verbatim, unable to contextualize. I was driving around the roundabout in Trinidad, Colorado when I heard the excited voice of Phil Mattingly on CNN (via Sirius). Phil had been patiently waiting at the gate for nothing but this plane to arrive, and now suddenly had a story on his hands:
"The plane did not have wi-fi during the entire fight. So you have senior advisors, as well as Hillary Clinton on the plane, and as the plane landed they were finding out about this as we were landing. I had one advisor tell me, 'we're learning about that at the same time you guys are.' They didn't have advanced notice of this, they seem similarly stunned and we saw them huddling, we've been waiting for Hillary Clinton to deplane to go to that first event in Cedar Rapids, as of now she has not. [...]
She's expected to speak in about 20 minutes. She hasn't gotten off the plane yet. The reporters are waiting outside her plane right now to yell and see if she'll come over and say anything. Usually the deplaning process happens rather quickly, but it's worth noting her top advisors are on the plane, campaign manager Robby Mook, communications director Jen Palmieri, Huma Abedin, her close advisor is also on the plane right now. They have not deplaned yet. Still waiting far to happen, waiting to see if they will have reaction. I think the takeaway is they had no idea this was coming so they're trying to formulate a response right now."
Once Hill was en route to her scheduled event, John Podesta-- of the email treasure trove fame-- came out as swingingly as one can against the Director of the FBI, claiming the timing of this letter plays right into the small, greasy hands of nobody's favorite land developer. Diane Feinstein was also appalled and said so to the press. The New York Times ran a feature about a 26-year-old lawyer on a road trip to follow not just her dreams but her heart, right into Arkansas. The Washington Post found a nameless Comey apologist who filled up word count quickly, with endless rhetorical questions:
"What would it look like if the FBI inadvertently came across additional emails that appear to be relevant to the Clinton investigation and not at least inform the Oversight Committee that this occurred? What would be the criticism then? That the FBI hid it? That the FBI purposely kept this information to themselves?" What, surely, was a poor, ethically-upstanding government official to do? Delete the files? Delay the process? Put it off for a month? I've always heard that's how, sometimes, it works. Some other news sites describe the brink of World War III-- irreegardless of the outcome of this charade of an election-- so I can't help but wonder if I'm intentionally supposed to be caught up in the drama of Hillary's gang using unauthorized email addresses (like huma.abedin@yahoo.com, as the Drudge Report ran this afternoon), instead of asking about the implications of what was said to be a close call by US and Russian air forces in the skies over Syria, which happened within the same news cycle as this re-ignited email controversy. The NYTimes also cited a former Watergate attorney, Nick Ackerman, as saying it's not the place of the FBI director to be making such a scene, about any ongoing investigation, "never mind about an investigation based on evidence that he acknowledges may not be significant." He's right, but in this election year, it has been just about anybody's business, to get up on the wing of the airplane and jump around like a madman-- metaphorically, if not rhetorically. Clinton did the same-- jumped up and down on the wing of her own plane-- later in the day, demanding documentation from the FBI regarding the status of the email investigation (what else can one do?), while the New York Post was running humiliating PhotoShop jobs of Anthony Weiner on their front page, as it came to be understood that Huma's ex-husband-- the texting, sexting freak-- was a likely cause for Comey's renewed and public interest. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 made a statement about race in the United States. The election of 2016 has sadly become a statement about the behavior of the most piggish and deplorable of men: the adulterers, the molesters, the abusers, and the portion of us that collectively look the other way. Charlie Sheen, Bill Cosby-- these people never ran for office. If Anthony Weiner is at the center of Comey's re-opening of the investigation, this scandal will dissipate as quickly as anyone's reservations about Trump's "locker room talk." But there is something much uglier than that on the wing of the plane these days.
Horwitz, S. (28 Oct. 2016). The Washington Post. "FBI Director..." Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-director-james-b-comey-under-fire-for-his-controversial-decision-on-the-clinton-email-inquiry/2016/10/28/fbad009c-9d57-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html
Hains, T. (28 Oct. 2016). "CNN Reports..." RealClearPolitics. Retrieved from http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/28/cnn_reporter_on_clintons_plane_she_learned_about_fbi_reopening_case_at_the_same_time_you_did.html
