President Donald Trump's allies are preparing an extensive campaign to fight back against James Comey's publicity tour, trying to undermine the credibility of the former FBI director by reviving the blistering Democratic criticism of him before he was fired nearly a year ago.
The battle plan against Comey, obtained by CNN, calls for branding the nation's former top law enforcement official as "Lyin' Comey" through a website, digital advertising and talking points to be sent to Republicans across the country before his memoir is released next week. The White House signed off on the plan, which is being overseen by the Republican National Committee.
"Comey is a liar and a leaker and his misconduct led both Republicans and Democrats to call for his firing," Republican chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to CNN. "If Comey wants the spotlight back on him, we'll make sure the American people understand why he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility."
While it's an open question how successful Republicans will be in making their case against Comey, given that Trump unceremoniously dismissed him last May 9, there is no doubt that many Democrats remain furious at how the former FBI director treated Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Republicans hope to remind Democrats why they disliked Comey by assailing his credibility, shining a new light on his conduct and pointing out his contradictions -- or the three Cs.
An old quotation from Clinton is prominently displayed on the "Lyin'Comey" website, with Trump's former Democratic rival saying that Comey "badly overstepped his bounds."
I assume it will be just about as "effective" as the Trump regime effort to discredit Michael Wolff before Fire and Fury hit the stands back in January, which is to say it will backfire tremendously and serve as a spectacular example of the Streisand Effect in action.
Speaking of Wolff, the little weasel takes to the Hollywood Reporter this week to make the case for his book and to attack the media again.
Donald Trump's standard operating procedure of conflict, insults, reversals and dismissals — fire and fury, if you will — is still reported by the news media with breathless surprise. The most obvious man on Earth is yet, to the media, always astonishing. Whose fault is that? Covering a train wreck requires different skills from covering politics. But political reporters continue to apply the hyper-rationality of political life and its heightened sense of cause and effect to Trump and his White House. Power, in this view, necessarily has logic and purpose.
Earlier this year, The New York Times broke a story about how, in June, Trump tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. True enough — except that the Times story implied the culmination of a decision-making process and certain calculated intent. In fact, for most of June, Trump, in wounded-beast fashion, demanded every day that Mueller be fired. The difference, not at all fine, is between being in control and out of control, between a plan, however wicked, and a meltdown. Similarly, The Washington Post recently tried to explain Trump's legal team's worry about his testimony before the special counsel as having to do with "lack of precision in his speech and penchant for hyperbole." That's a significantly more comforting interpretation than that he has no ability to adapt to any standard measure of language and reality.
By insisting that Trump merely refuses to conform or doesn't care to conform, the media misses the far more novel and alarming point: that he can't conform.
And while Wolff's relationship with the truth puts him firmly in the category of "opportunistic bastard" he's not wrong when it comes to Trump's trashing of norms: he can't conform to any because he's a serial narcissistic sociopath.
It's important to keep that in mind.
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