Thread by @KillerMartinis

Ok people

The drunk tweeting nominations have been made, seconded and thirded

So tonight we will commence the evening's literary activity of drunk-tweeting through the Comey book!

Now. Should you care to contribute to the cause, you can buy a drink at PayPal.me/riseandbeheard

No really I'm less torn about this than the Ivanka book

I am at least properly ashamed of this dust cover.

Also fair warning I do have a prior engagement in two hours and I'll be taking a break for that and picking back up after.

Aaand I snort-laughed before I got past the dedication

Like the head of the FBI ain't never heard of COINTELPRO

Also my kingdom for a highlighter since we're into physical copy here

You all will deal with my colored pens instead I presume

ALSO also: when you're at a bar if you want to take over a table even though it's dinner service and you're not eating, just talk to the host and don't be a dick and then you'll get a place to sit that is a good level for a book and keyboard.

BE NICE TO THE DAMN HOST.

OK we are on Page X. Not even the book. Page X. And already I am confused because what is expertise if not a lifetime of study?

Oh wait that's followed by whole paragraphs about the man's thoughts on ethical leadership

You know, the guy who's no expert who is apparently writing a book on the subject anyway?

What kind of rich-people buzzword collection is this

Literally do any of you know what this means

OK so we open the actual book with e Niebuhr quote because to be perfectly fair who else you gonna quote here: "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

(A drunk man has just walked into this bar and asked the host to check in like this was a hotel

However nice you are to hosts and doorpeople, double it please, they work so hard)

OK so first thing we learn is that (first sentence, first actual chapter) "There are ten blocks between FBI headquarters and Capitol Hill"

And apparently Comey never walked them. He's talking about riding past the Archives.

I mean it's not unusual for high-ranking officials to be driven two blocks from security concerns alone

But it's still damn weird.

(OH HOLY SHIT this bar is actually also an AirBNB or something so drunk guy was actually not speaking nonsense)

Ok so upfront we learn that Comey would like to not be held to *too* much account for what he's about to write because he's no expert

But also given his position we should read the remainder of the book.

I mean sure yeah the first time the FBI got involved in a US election was in 2015

Let's just go with that as provable reality or whatever

NO *gasping* NO REALLY WITH A STRAIGHT FACE

*Pings literally all of my protest fam*

OK I have a few questions

What person who knows the St Crispin's Day speech doesn't know the Shakespeare reference

But if you're pointing people to the speech why would you not name the play, I'm confused

And with this query we end the introduction to A Higher Loyalty by James Comey, who's just some dude who happened to have spent decades building a career that culminated in a top-level appointment as head of a security service to a superpower

Just some dude wondering WTF

Ok so on this getting-another-drink break I have to wonder

Did nobody tell Comey about Hoover

Because that would explain basically the whole introduction to this book

I have owned this book for an hour and already I cannot explain this

AND WE COMMENCE CHAPTER ONE

I have another drink and appreciate all of you who have thus far contributed to the bar tab at paypal.me/riseandbeheard because dear hot damn I ain't gonna make it through this sober

OK bro

We open the actual book with a quote from Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, who said "the life begins with a lie"

And you know, when I think of things an FBI Director might think of as credible I think of Sammy Gravano, amirite

Oh wait Gravano was a notorious criminal who turned states evidence and therefore is now an unimpeachable witness and also a sage giver of wisdom

My bad I forget who's credible and not by FBI lights

This whole explanation of Costra Nostra better make thematic fucking sense later otherwise I would be reading Gravano's memoir

No someone has to explain to me how this is in any way different from working for Walmart

Like, materially, I assume Cosa Nostra doesn't make you do a group cheer at 8AM, which is actually an improvement?

Ok so fair warning the next part is about a gripping childhood disaster involving guns to the head and believe me I am dying to know like you are but I did promise to go support an author at a book reading so I'm going to go do that now

We'll pick this up in some hours

LOL MY BAD

So this isn't a thing I talk about a lot but I don't hear well. Which means that if I'm in the seventh row of a book event and there's no mic I literally can't hear a damn thing

I assume this author is very smart and all but I'll never know cause I can't hear them

Like I straight fucked up my whole schedule to come to this to the point I spent money and I get here and fuck you if you ain't got perfect hearing

Anyway I got me a flask of woodford and now apparently a solid half hour before I have to go be social at this event so we are carrying the fuck on outside a bookstore, I assume that's how long the q&a will be

(Welcome to hidden disability, where nobody fucks with accommodations and they don't even feel a way about it because they'll never know why you left the event)

ANYWAY that's the end of me being tipsy pissed that I straight up spent a whole extra day in a city to go to a thing I'm not welcome at

Let us delve back into the time James Comey had some armed robber break into his house as a kid

Ok this is an incredibly dramatic tale of an actual no-shit break-in by an armed robber and as Comey tells it, maybe rapist had his sister been home

Like I believe it because I am a woman who has lived an improbable life and you might embroider this but you don't make it up out of whole cloth

OK so literal hours later after I've walked a solid three hours I finally found a bar that wasn't charging over ten bucks cover on this Tuesday

And what the fuck Chicago, it ain't a weekend

Who did you book that was worth this

Ask me again why I live in the damn country, when I can walk into a bar and expect not to pay money for the privilege of spending money here and also I don't have to worry that anyone will bring a half-trained German shepherd to the place where all the loud noises are

Anyway back to this fucking book

See the thing is that Comey once faced violence

And hey let's not discount the impact of an armed robbery on a kid here

But I do wonder how many kids face that and never get to run the FBI

I mean I get they I'm both tipsy and very white but I feel like that's a conversation people have pretty early and often with their kids if they're not white

No but in case you didn['t actually know All You Fascists Bound To Lose

Anyway all of chapter one is that this dude once had some guys burst into his house and hold his family by gunpoint

This clearly is the setup for "then I was the head of the FBI"

And this is the end of the first grand of Chapter Two

OKAY PARTY NERDS ARE YOU READY

IT IS TIME TO READ MORE COMEY!

Now chapter two is about how the young Comey watched a Mob case in law school and it made him want to be a prosecutor

Also he met a man he wanted to be just like, which is how this sentence came to exist:

One assumes this is something of an understatement

#welp

Also, given that this book is supposed to be largely about the dangerous PR freak being in charge of things this seems like a weird thing to say:

Ok frankly it might be worth reading this just because he's catty about people he doesn't like, and we can be reasonably certain he doesn't like Rudy Giuliani:

And thus endeth Chapter Two, which was about Comey's mafia cases.

We're not bothering with chapter three which is about how James Comey doesn't like bullies but did like working at a grocery in high school.

Chapter four: james comey's wife is a legit badass.

You guys this book is not quotable in the beginning bits, it's all biography.

Ok chapter five is about truth and honesty and also Martha Stewart and this line just tickles me for some reason

Oh he does not like Giuliani

#goals

Uh, does it seem weird to anyone else that he's essentially comparing jail to divinity

Dude it's DC it's the worst place though to have a soul in what kind of nonsense is this

Frankly who hasn't wanted to knock over John Ashcroft

Breaking: dick Cheney is an ass

DRAG THEM. DRAG THE WHOLE BUSH ADMINISTRATION.

And that concludes Chapter Five! Also it looks like this is where things start to pick up in this book cause

LOL ok this is legit funny

Bob mueller ladies and gents

God, Dubya is a dick

James Comey: not a Hayden fan, we guess!

Also can I just say that "sassy bitch" is a thing here

Your periodic reminder because I am getting another drink that you can chip in on this bar tab at PayPal.me/riseandbeheard

When lawyers get pissy

And that is the end of chapter six!

Oh good chapter seven is where we justify torture this is just fine nothing to see here and anyway it wasn't like DOJ actually *condoned* the torture, it just ruled that it was technically legal amirite

Wait my bad, he was setting up the chapter and I misread it. This is a few grafs later:

Aww look you guys Comey wants to believe this about himself

But why though

Oh my god this is precisely what one should say about Alberto Gonzalez that spineless fuck

Like I someday want to write with this much contempt for someone, Comey LOATHES Gonzalez and he bothers hiding it just enough to be clear how much more there is underneath

He's not the most talented writer, he's competent, but hot damn this is a joy to read this bits

My god imagine writing this in a book and thinking it would act as absolution instead of condemnation

Anyway end chapter seven in 2005 and open chapter eight in 2013 and oh yeah it turns out apparently nobody DID tell Comey about Hoover which is the only possible way this graf was written

No wait then he talks about Hoover so

Ok a few things 1. We are roughly halfway through this book, and 2. I just want you to know how much work my liver is doing here and 3. Who the whole fuck don't know what a tell is this is the weirdest explanation

I'm pretty sure that my transition from "doesn't" to "don't" is my tell

The liquor has kicked in

Also half this chapter is about Obama being a generally smart and decent guy and then we get to this and I love this

Wait you guys is this where that nonsense came from about arming teachers, that a bunch o assholes think they're the fucking feds

Interesting tho

Right but let's be clear because the FBI is for white people and always has been and this isn't like news or anything, it's a thing people know about

Bullshit bullshit bullshit and in case that wasn't clear, bullshit

Dude is waxing poetic about gender and racial diversity in a way that I pray other CEOs might

But let's not forget what the FBI actually does and who it targets and who's most often hurt by it shall we

Your reminder that if you don't know COINTELPRO you should hit the google

Well slap my ass and call me a newborn who would have known

Who ordered the dystopian hellscape

Dystopian hellscape, anyone?

WHAT DOES CONSISTENTLY EXCELLENT MEAN

WHY IS EVERYONE CONCERNED WITH EXCELLENCE

DO CORPORATIONS NOT KNOW WHAT THESAURUSES ARE

Man this liquor kicked in just in time, I could manage the biographical detail sober but this last half the book, mates, idk idk idk

(OT but every time I do this I pick up a bunch of new followers and still see a net loss

I tweet for y'all that get me)

Also can someone explain rich people to me please because in what actual fuck-off world does what color shirt someone is wearing matter to literally anyone or anything

What do you mean set a tone

It's a cotton poly blend with buttons man not the magna carta

Like I get dressed in the morning via the following rules:

1. Is it wrinkled
2. Does it fit today

If both 1 and 2 pass muster put on the clothes

Like that's how I get dressed to go on hbo or msnbc

He forgot "surveil the innocent, entrap civil rights leaders, gaslight activists and support corrupt local law enforcement to terrorize black people" but otherwise ok

Why is this not the first anecdote to go public from this book

Oh well damn dude at least balances his Letter From Birmingham Jail reference with a flat-out acknowledgement of what the Bureau did. More than I'd expected.

...a start?

Well holy fuck chapter nine, which opens with the following words:

Eric garner
Tamir rice
Walter Scott
Freddie gray

Nah I'm getting another drink before I read the head of the motherfucking FBI writing about Ferguson

Nope nope nope

The shit I do for you people

OKAY. I did three shots of bourbon and we are commencing chapter nine

Welp

What fresh nonsense is this now

The whole fucking point is that those "positive, professional encounters" are with white people

That is the whole fucking point

These tragic deaths

My dude they weren't just tragic they were murder. Active murder.

I highlighted the one line because holy hell but also

The heavily armed people bearing the full weight of the law behind them don't feel "appreciated"

Or "safe"

Ok so a few damn things here

Why the fuck does anyone have to appreciate people who are ACCORDING TO LAW ENFORCEMENT'S OWN RECORDS going to abuse and predate on them

No literally two pages ago dude was talking about systemic racism in policing and now this appreciation shit

Secondly how does a dude in Kevlar with a shotgun in his trunk and a sidearm on his hip and a badge on his chest feel unsafe in the general community

I was told good guys with guns were the solution and now you're telling me they're shaking and that you think they need arms?

No fucking comment.

Also no fucking comment.

This whole damn chapter should have been titled "Jim Comey: the best white savior or the bestest?"

(This break brought to you by my need to go to a bar with better lighting)

Aaaand found

God I love corner tradie bars

Now back to this bullshit right here

Remember this speech is in Chicago

That's where he went for this

No shit do you think

Can't imagine why

Why is someone who would hope this in charge of anything

Seriously you think that you're gonna make a speech in Chicago about black dudes shooting each other and you are surprised that goes poorly

Anyway he ain't wrong about this anyway

(OT if I wasn't on this book this might be the greatest episode of Linda Goes To A Bar yet, there's a Greek bartender who's just always always here and it's a mostly Puerto Rican clientele and some young buck's just been bounced and was refusing to leave and oh man)

(Never annoy middle aged Puerto Rican men who just want to drink and yell at the game on tv, the whole damn bar bounced the kid and told him he might as well be white for as much honor as he was bringing PR)

(And then they realized a white woman had posted up at the bar during the confusion and one of them apologized to me for being racist but I'm reading this chapter of Comey and I'm like nah that's a fair insult)

Welp. On the Obama situation room versus the GWB one

Ok so this is too involved to find a pull quote but the up shot is after Comey said a bunch of stupid shit in public (and the way he gives his rationale I kind of am like ok that actually makes sense)

Obama pulls him in to explain very gently why he fucked it up

OK SO THE COPS ARE HERE

What the fuck is going on

The cops straight up walked in and before saying anything else told us all they're wearing cameras and recording

I mean ok Chicago protocol

Also PLOT TWIST drunk bounced guy is someone's nephew

Tradie bars: guy tells the cops "nah we chased him out but thanks for showing up" and then thanks the cop for walking his beat and tries to buy said cop a beer

I have ordered a whole new round after this because hot damn wtf is my life even

(I mean come on I'm tweeting about a speech about racist policing that was given in Chicago and I'm in central Chicago and of course officer friendly shows up and I'm like LOL IF I WAS FIVE MILES SOUTH RIGHT NOW)

(Also OT and FYI in a Spanish speaking bar nacho cheese Doritos are just called rojos. Or maybe it's just this bar. Either way I'm gonna smoke because this whole book thing is not my jam after the cops and the drunk dude, lemme reconfigure here)

What I'm telling you is that reading a book is a whole damn journey for me

If you care to buy me a drink and keep me on this path you feel free, what a weird ass night, PayPal.me/riseandbeheard

Ok while I was gone the bartender decided I needed another shot

I kinda love middle aged Greek dudes who think I need soothing on the basis of being a youngish woman

Ok back to this book tho

I'm white as bone so I don't know what this actually means but imagine being the president of the united motherfucking states and having to bring a dude into your office who heads the FBI and explain this to him

Wait no

I have found it

The whitest sentence ever published by a major house

I SPOKE TOO SOON

Oh my god

Ok so for y'all who are new here I went to high school with literal Nazis. I'm from the sticks. I really thought I had previously properly called peak white shit AND THEN I TURNED THE PAGE WHAT THE FUCK

It gets worse STILL

For a whole page

Save me white Jesus because wut

This fucker sat across from Obama and explained that "mass incarceration" was a hurtful term to law enforcement

What the shit lana

"And the insulting part, I explained" had better be a viral fucking explanation from now on

Hi have you ever wondered how to properly define "boggle" as in "the mind boggles" I have found you the definition

WHAT NOW

WHAT THOUGH

And like sure that's your fucking pivot to Edward Snowden

Who edited this

My dude the shit you don't understand would fill the library of Alexandria clearly

No and I get I'm enough shots in that I'm past the cops and also the fact that my ovaries are having some kind of revolution and that I'm a writer so I'm a critic but what now why would you not start a new chapter to bitch about Apple what fuckery is this

This is just shitty structure and someone should have said so

In which the masters of the universe carry the fuck on with their proxy fight

I mean I worked at a porn store, a few strip clubs and some fast food joints but I guess carry on talking about the FBI or whatever

Ok people we are on page 153 of 277

Which means we're over halfway and also that this shit is definitely gone be at least a three day if not four

Also your reminder that I carry this on as long as I'm not out of pocket on the bar tab which you can handily contribute to at PayPal.me/riseandbeheard

But I'm done with this nonsense for the night

There's been cops and cramps and I've put in my hours today

We'll pick this up tomorrow in I assume the afternoon, I'm gonna read some news like that'll help anything and go to bed and we'll see when I wake up

HI PEOPLE ARE YOU EXCITED FOR MORE COMEY?

It's a gorgeous spring day in Chicago and I have found a park with a gentle breeze and gamboling dogs

We carry on reading, with the bourbon in my briefcase as company!

To catch you up, we have just left Comey telling the first black President how the term "mass incarceration" is mean to police officers

And then we pivoted to Edward Snowden because sure why not

Now shockingly, the career law enforcement dude thinks that no tech company should be allowed to make anything that doesn't have at least a backdoor that's accessible to the government. Because you could get a warrant!

Anyway we're back to Comey musing about his own leadership skills but this graf ain't wrong

After more paragraphs about the dress code and whether jackets in meetings foster good discussion, we have done with chapter nine!

Chapter ten is 2016.

Which opens with a Thatcher quote because why not

Also I am no fan of hillary but my dude here has put together just a spectacular set of sentences:

Wait what

I don't lawyer but surely this would make it actually inappropriate to meet?

Oh god. The emails. Send liquor.

Welp

Welp further

In which Comey isn't wrong:

Jim Comey hates all of you equally

Ok so. This is where shit gets real. Here we get into the things dude needs to justify, where parts are still ongoing and other bits are classified and we know the writer has a motivation to cover his ass

So maybe four or five grains of salt from here

Also this is entirely and completely true. If you punish someone enough in public they learn to not care what anyone thinks of them.

#goals

Ok but it was silly from the jump

I have an immediate and visceral reaction to any law enforcement officer anywhere in any context ever saying the word "ferguson"

that's how I came to understand the term "take the name out of your mouth"

This seems... weird? Natsec or comms people, is this weird?

Ok so I am on page 169 which is far enough into the book to know that Comey is catty as hell which makes this sentence way more glorious

Ok I have questions about this Lynch thing

Why would you assume anything on an issue of this much importance

And why would you not clarify when you were writing this book

And why did no editor or fact checker catch this

His female boss's request was "too frivolous"

And he's very into precise language and always doing the right thing, says the rest of the book

I wonder if he understands how much of himself he is showing here

Zero self awareness

Ok so this book might as well be me just saying "I spoke too soon" ad nauseam because whenever I make a comment the next graf proves that I should have waited

ZERO SELF AWARENESS

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

It is at this point of the afternoon that I point out that my bar tab (mostly) ain't free and I'm making a valiant effort here to save you all the cover price of this book

PayPal.me/riseandbeheard whenever you fair folk like

*singsong voice* I know something you don't know

I'm sorry what

What now

In which the head of the whole FBI just speculates that the president was speaking out of turn and still somehow nobody in the whole book writing process confirmed this

Really the problem was sally Yates

I don't lawyer but I assume this is fucking silly

Also here's another for you law folks

Ok so this whole chapter is what I assume is a lot of justification to the lawyers that will read this? Like this whole paragraph: I include it for y'all attorneys

Ok actually this whole chapter is what I assume makes sense to lawyers

This is the weeds of which department should investigate things

Buy this book if you're interested in a lawyer's justification for his hugely relevant actions that he wants to obfuscate

Upshot is Comey at some point convinced Yates to do the thing and she went wild over some laptops that even justice wasn't sure were relevant

Also this is why I drunk tweet

If I was sober I would think I had heard some earlier reference to this, only there wasn't one so what the fuck

Hello new through line?

Like, what classified material was going to drop, this is the first this has been mentioned in the chapter and a half that was an explicit explanation of politics

I feel like if you have to say "as noted earlier" you did a shit job as an author and also where

Where earlier did you note this

No why would any random citizen assume that a wholly special meeting was about anything significant, in a world where the color of one's shirt was a thing

Seriously whether one wears a white or blue shirt, or whether one wears a jacket

This is worth whole paragraphs. But hey people meet with people all the time and why is anyone worried

Are all privileged people this fucking dumb or do they honestly just assume we are

My god imagine living a life where this was some shit you had to justify

Off I go to a better-lit bar

Ok so I graduated in 1999 so what do you mean rare

I'm 35 and I'm into my second special prosecutor in something to do with the president and right before me was watergate

So what the fuck with your rare here

For the record

For the record, the head of the FBI thinks that the FBI is great

Y'all I think maybe nobody told him about the New York office

Comey gets claws example eleventy million

Ok y'all this is one of those sentences authors pen about themselves that is the opposite of reality even if it's their truth

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Oh good, chapter eleven, Russia now!

Comey sets up the chapter by saying the Russians interfered in the election flat out to hurt hillary and help trump, and also to undermine confidence in America's system generally.

Oh and they were definitely trying to hack the voter rolls.

Did you need a morality tale about hubris? Here is one!

I feel like you could just start every sentence about Anthony Weiner with "for reasons nobody could explain"

Comey then spends pages stating and restating his case that the only reason he told anyone about the emails on the Weiner laptop was that it would be dishonest *not* to because he'd testified the case was closed.

I really keep being forced to wonder if anyone has told this dude that ran the FBI anything about the history of the FBI.

Polls lie, and this dude didn't know it.

In which he'd do it all again

Fair concern tho.

Oh good, chapter twelve, trump!

(There was pages more justification on the email thing but it was just the same thing different ways.)

That's a fun opening anecdote

And what a sentence

On the Steele dossier

Also I am here for Comey getting catty about Trump

You know, it's just fantastic that this is a thing you'd write about the sitting president

"It was smaller than mine but not unusually so" is the best and bitchiest way to end this whole graf, which is my favorite of the book so far

Meow

LOL fair

In which Comey laughs at trump over ladies peeing on each other

And considers climbing out a window to get away from Trump

I feel as though many people have felt this about hugging trump

Ok but briefly it's unusual to see a man talking about avoiding workplace hugs and it sticks out.

Seriously it's like you can't write about trump without it being weird and gross. Which makes sense.

Man I want to see the first draft of this chapter. This is just relentless.

Bad Dates In The White House Residence

Oh man if trump reads this he's nuking someone within days.

If you keep in mind this is the FBI director talking about the president this whole chapter is just wild

Yup definitely nukes

You guys we have done it

We have made it to the last chapter

Your reminder that should you care to contribute to the cause you can do so at PayPal.me/riseandbeheard and it's appreciated cause I ain't doing this sober

Everyone in Washington felt bad for priebus

AHAHAHAHA these constant little digs

This is fairly strong though

Aha he don't like sessions either

Well this just makes every journo real comfy now

I don't know what to do with this. Did nobody at the White House explain this?

Also this is not what you want anyone saying about a sitting president

Oh man his retelling of his firing though. Just brutal.

Also he's pointed out a bunch that the only reason he could fuck Trump up is that he was a private citizen after he got fired.

And that's it. We're to the epilogue.

A few takeaways: firstly this book is absolutely comey's attempt to inoculate himself from criticism. He positions himself as a gee-whiz wrong place wrong time Everyman in nearly every situation.

Secondly, he's not wrong about nearly everything about 2016 being unprecedented and there not being clear right answers.

Most of the value in this book will be from the fact that he's wonderfully catty to people who suck. Much of what he talks about is ongoing and he's the hero of his own story anyway so as far as information it's of limited worth.

All in all I recommend that political tragics read it, but for regular people I have clipped you the highlights!

Your reminder that you can support my efforts on patreon.com/bootstrap

And I sure need a drink and a shower after all that so you can chip this bar tab at PayPal.me/riseandbeheard anytime!

My many thanks to the bars of Chicago for their contributions as well!