Conor Beck of the Washington Free Beacon highlighted the pro-Comey bravado of MSNBC political analyst Howard Fineman on Friday night’s edition of Hardball. Fineman was beside himself that anyone would complain that the former FBI director was cowardly, or un-manly. He told the accusers they should “grow a pair themselves.” Testicle remarks on Hardball.
Somehow, Chris Matthews and Fineman (also with the liberal Huffington Post) were trying to convince themselves that it's somehow not "leaking" to take your private memos and share them with The New York Times through a law-professor intermediary.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: But the notion of leaking, I mean, I spent all these years since the '70s in Washington, and leaking is what you do in politics. mean, if you're going to get a story on the front page of a newspaper, you give it to one newspaper or one weekly magazine, as you know. That's how you put out a story.
In this case, Mr. Comey released what his memory was of a meeting he had with the president when he was working for the government. It doesn't seem like a leak to me, no matter how hard Kasowitz tries to make it so.
HOWARD FINEMAN: No, it's not. These were notes about his private impressions written by himself, for himself. And especially now that he`s out of a job, thanks to the president, Jim Comey can distribute those notes to anybody he wants, quote from them as he wants, give them to his friend at Columbia Law School if he wants.
As you said, that's what books are. If, you know, Robert Gates was considered to have written one of the really terrific autobiographical books about being Secretary of Defense. I mean, that is full of everything he did and saw and learned as Secretary of Defense. That`s what makes it a -- what makes it a book.
So, and the notion also that they're calling out Jim Comey's manhood, I mean, Jim Comey went in front of the whole world yesterday. In that scene you're showing right there and called the president of the United States a liar and in excruciating, riveting detail, documented what he saw as theme president's lies. Now, that's guts. That's not lack of guts. That's guts big-time, and the people who, you know, attack Comey for that should, you know, try to grow a pair themselves.
MATTHEWS: Well said.
An emotional verdict like this can easily lead a skeptic to one intuitive conclusion: Comey has leaked plenty of information to Howard Fineman over the years. It wasn't that courageous to testify when the entire liberal media built up Comey like Moses was coming to Capitol Hill with stone tablets.
For an attempt to find Fineman attacking Comey before the election, when the Hillary folks wanted him tarred and feathered, this is Howard two days before the election:
MATTHEWS: OK. You know I made a judgment about Comey a long time ago positively and in spite of that. So I`ve sort of thought my sense is he`s a good public official.
FINEMAN: I think he`s -- I think he is. I just think he's been in a way he's been too careful and too political to try to be non-political.
MATTHEWS: That could be it. We do that here sometimes.
FINEMAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Anyway we try to be perfect and we fail.
