“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Eugene Robinson: Freaking out? Go vote instead.
Take a deep breath. Exhale. Repeat, until the anxiety attack passes. Then go vote, and soon our long national nightmare will be over.
FBI Director James B. Comey’s “October surprise” decision to cast last-minute shade over Hillary Clinton, based on emails he and his agents had not even read, was appallingly unfair. But there’s nothing to be done about that now — and no reason to believe it will change the fundamental shape of the race, which has been remarkably consistent. Donald Trump remains on track to lose, and the question is by how much. [..]
To state the obvious, this is not a normal election. Democrats have nominated the first woman to head a major-party ticket, a controversial figure with vast experience who has been on the national stage for three decades. Republicans have nominated the worst candidate in modern history, a know-nothing narcissist who lies constantly, treats women like possessions and appeals not to the better angels of our nature but to the worst bigotry and resentment. One candidate surely would be a competent president, perhaps a very good one. The other would be an unmitigated disaster.
That has to be the bottom line: Who’s going to be sitting in the Oval Office, making the life-or-death decisions that come with being the most powerful individual on Earth? Do you want a life-long public servant with an encyclopedic grasp of the issues, or a buffoon guided only by his own prejudices?
Katrina vnaden Heuvel: A dirty trick that won’t change the outcome
Boo. Last week, FBI Director James B. Comey decided to scare up this election’s October surprise, writing to inform 16 congressional committee chairs and ranking members that the FBI had discovered emails in an unrelated investigation that potentially could be linked to the probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Subsequent leaks led the New York Times to report that the emails were found on a computer belonging to Anthony Weiner, the disgraced ex-New York congressman and estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s closest aide and “surrogate daughter.” [..]
Comey dropped the bombshell when he had no idea what the emails contained. This indefensible abuse compounded his original sin of publicly declaring that the FBI investigation of Clinton’s emails had been completed and that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against her. He made that statement proudly announcing that the Justice Department and the rest of the government “do not know what I am about to say.”
The decision on prosecution is made by the prosecutors at the Justice Department, not by the FBI director or his investigators. Comey clearly holds himself in high self-regard and has an unquenchable thirst for the spotlight, but he was out of line then and is out of line now. Republicans rightly howled then; Democrats are right to object now. Perhaps both might agree that he should be fired as soon as the election is over and shunned for shaming his office.
Trevor Timm>: James Comey has been abusing his power for years
FBI director James Comey set off a torrent of criticism late last week when he directly inserted himself into the presidential campaign with a vague letter to Congress about the reopening of Clinton email case. His conduct has shocked many observers across the political spectrum, but the only thing truly surprising about this episode is that people are only now realizing how power-hungry and dangerous Comey actually is.
During his stints in the Bush and Obama administration Comey has continually taken authoritarian and factually dubious public stances both at odds with responsible public policy and sometimes the law. The Clinton case is not an aberration, it’s part of a clear pattern. [..]
The evidence against Comey has been available ever since President Obama nominated him. All that’s changed is that people are finally paying attention.
Christopher Ketcham: Bundy Verdict Puts a Target on the Backs of Federal Workers
With the jury acquittals last week of Ammon and Ryan Bundy and their accomplices in the 41-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon last winter, the lives of federal land managers in the American West got a whole lot more difficult.
This was more than just a court victory.
The Bundys landed a blow against a culture of public service embodied by the federal employees responsible for maintaining law and order and protecting our wildest Western landscapes. And while we don’t know the reason for the acquittals in what seemed like an open-and-shut case of guilt, it comes against a backdrop of deep antipathy in parts of the West toward the environmental regulation of the hundreds of millions of acres of rangeland, forests and national parks managed by the federal government on behalf of all Americans.
Tim Weiner: The Long Shadow of J. Edgar Hoover
Do the words “extremely careless” ring a bell?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s director, James B. Comey, threw that stinging criticism at Hillary Clinton in July, shortly after announcing that the bureau’s long investigation of her handling of classified information had turned up no crime. Now he faces the same judgment from her — and his superiors at the Justice Department.
In hurling barbs at Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Comey has at once revived his reputation for confronting commanders in chief and resurrected the spirit of the F.B.I.’s most infamous high priest. Somewhere, tearing wings off flies in a dark star chamber in the sky, J. Edgar Hoover is smiling. The use of secret information to wound public figures was one of his favorite sports.
The United States has spent many years trying to stand clear of Hoover’s long shadow. But it lengthens in an age of relentless government surveillance and pitiless political publicity. And Mr. Comey has chosen to become a singular force in American politics. His miscalculated decision to unleash his letter to Clinton hunters in Congress looked less like a legal maneuver than an act of political warfare.
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