Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has joined the chorus of Democrats condemning President Trump for firing FBI Director James Comey. Seeing a president they despise fire an FBI director they also despise, Democrats are showing signs of cognitive dissonance, and Waters is no exception. Caught between two men she hates, Waters told MSNBC’s Peter Alexander that while she does not support President Trump firing Comey, she believes that if Hillary Clinton had won, she should have fired him.
Given the hatred the Left has for Comey — driven in large part by the fact that many of them blame his investigations into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal for her losing the election — one would expect Waters and her comrades in the Democratic Party to celebrate him receiving his pink slip. But since that would mean agreeing with Trump, the Left — Waters included — have suddenly made Comey the new poster boy of their anti-Trump campaign.
While almost everyone on the Left is busily touting one conspiracy theory or another about why the president fired an FBI director they had collectively (and correctly) deemed unworthy of the position he held, Waters — as per usual — took it to the next level in an interview with MSNBC’s Peter Alexander. The congresswoman who — in the wake of attending a classified briefing by Comey in January — told the press, “All I can tell you is the FBI Director has no credibility” and who issued a press statement under the headline, “Rep. Waters: FBI Director Comey Advanced Russia’s Misinformation Campaign” was interviewed by Alexander on Wednesday. Alexander began by saying, “You obviously have been very critical of James Comey in the past. You said that he had ‘no credibility.’ I assume you support the president’s decision, then, to fire his FBI director.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxe2RZVc_to
Of course, the operative word in Alexander’s statement is “support.” And supporting Trump is a bridge too far for Maxine Waters. She responded, “No, I do not — necessarily — support the president’s decision.” She went on to say, “If the president had not gone all over — If the president had not gone all over the country praising him about the way he handled Hillary and the e-mails, if the president had not said he had confidence in him, if the president had not said he was a part of his team…”
Just as Waters was building up a good head of steam, Alexander interrupted to ask, “I understand in the past he was praising him. But if you said that FBI Director James Comey had no credibility, wouldn’t you support the fact that the president, then-candidate Trump, now president Trump, made the decision to get rid of him?” Her answer? “No. Not necessarily.”
Not necessarily? That sounds like something in between “sort of” and “not really.” Why could she not just say “no”? Or better yet, just say “yes”? Why? Because the one would exonerate Comey and the other would support Trump. And for Waters and her comrades, neither is an option.
And there is the real point: Democrats cannot have it both ways. If Comey was as bad as they say he was (and this writer would agree that he was, but for different reasons from what the Left gives), then firing him was the right thing to do. But Waters demonstrated in the interview that she could not make that logical connection. The cognitive dissonance is so loud it simply drowns out all reason.
Waters then trotted out the Russian Bear as her beast of burden. She said:
You have an investigation going on where the president is implicated. And this is a serious investigation. I’ve been trying to get people to focus on this connection with the Kremlin and with Putin. I have a resolution that I introduced in February. I think there’s enough there that we know about the Kremlin and about Putin to be concerned about whether or not there was collusion. And that I believe they should have to connect the dots and get the facts because I think it will lead to the impeachment of this president.
Of course she offered the same proof of a Trump-Putin connection she and her comrades have offered all along: none.
Alexander pressed Waters further. Since she asserted that the president firing the FBI director (who, according to her, has no credibility) the MSNBC correspondent asked, “So, Congresswoman, respecting that be to be clear, you believe it would have been better to keep in place an FBI director who you said had no credibility to oversee this investigation than to find someone who you think would be a better choice?”
When she tried to turn the question back on itself, Alexander pressed again. “But you said he had no credibility so it would make sense that he get rid of him.” Her response sounds like a loose collection of talking points rattling around in a fishbowl:
No, no, no! Under investigation! This president basically has interfered with an investigation where he may be implicated. That’s outrageous. And that’s why we’re having so much of a conversation about it today. Everybody is talking about it because this is highly unusual.
Before it was over, Alexander did get Waters to admit that there was one possible set of circumstances where firing Comey would be all right. He asked, “So if Hillary Clinton had won the White House, would you have recommended that she fire FBI Director James Comey?” Waters did not hesitate for a moment to answer. The answer she gave was free of disclaimers such as “not necessarily.” She said, “Well, let me tell you something. If she had won the White House, I believe that given what he did to her, and what he tried to do, she should have fired him. Yes.”
So, just to clarify — Trump firing Comey for being a lousy FBI director is bad, but Hillary Clinton firing him out of spite and vengeance would be fine, according to Waters.
Image: screenshot from YouTube video of MSNBC interview
