This is like running someone over and then doing a told-ya-so dance when the cops announce that you didn’t do it on purpose, you’re just a terrible driver.

And then demanding an apology from the bystanders for ever having doubted you.

Compare and contrast. Here’s the sum total of Comey’s new WaPo op-ed addressing the allegations of FBI negligence in the new report (he also devotes a sentence elsewhere to the allegations against Kevin Clinesmith):

The Russia investigation was complicated — not surprisingly, the inspector general found mistakes, 17 of them, things the FBI should have done differently, or better. That’s always unfortunate, but human beings make mistakes. Inspector-general reports are valuable because they offer the chance to learn.

“Human beings make mistakes.” Now here’s the report itself, as quoted earlier in Ed’s post:

That so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate, hand-picked teams on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations that was briefed to the highest levels within the FBI, and that FBI officials expected would eventually be subjected to close scrutiny, raised significant questions regarding the FBI chain of command’s management and supervision of the FISA process. FBI Headquarters established a chain of command for Crossfire Hurricane that included close supervision by senior CD managers, who then briefed FBI leadership throughout the investigation. Although we do not expect managers and supervisors to know every fact about an investigation, or senior officials to know all the details of cases about which they are briefed, in a sensitive, high-priority matter like this one, it is reasonable to expect that they will take the necessary steps to ensure that they are sufficiently familiar with the facts and circumstances supporting and potentially undermining a FISA application in order to provide effective oversight, consistent with their level of supervisory responsibility. We concluded that the information that was known to the managers, supervisors, and senior officials should have resulted in questions being raised regarding the reliability of the Steele reporting and the probable cause supporting the FISA applications, but did not. In our view, this was a failure of not only the operational team, but also of the managers and supervisors, including senior officials, in the chain of command.

For these reasons, we recommend that the FBI review the performance of the employees who had responsibility for the preparation, Woods review, or approval of the FISA applications, as well as the managers and supervisors in the chain of command of the Carter Page investigation, including senior officials, and take any action deemed appropriate.

He’s describing dysfunction up and down the chain of command in Jim Comey’s FBI, all the way to the top, in handling a counterintelligence investigation involving Russia and, potentially, the next president of the United States.

Some mistakes are bigger than others, Jimbo. Big enough, we should all be able to agree, that the moment calls for a reaction slightly more nuanced than “pwn3d,” which is what his op-ed boils down to.

Well, the wait is over, and those who smeared the FBI are due for an accounting. In particular, Attorney General William P. Barr owes the institution he leads, and the American people, an acknowledgment of the truth…

As the leader of an institution that is supposed to be devoted to truth, Barr needs to stop acting like a Trump spokesperson. In the words of the nation’s Founders, the Justice Department’s inspector general has “Let Facts be submitted to a candid world.” The FBI fulfilled its mission — protecting the American people and upholding the U.S. Constitution. Now those who attacked the FBI for two years should admit they were wrong.

Don’t worry about Barr and Durham. After they went out of their way today to undermine Horowitz’s findings, with Durham taking the extraordinary step of interrupting an ongoing investigation to do so, their own findings will be scrutinized by critics down to a molecular level. For today, it’s enough to say that Jim Comey’s ticker-tape parade for the FBI over this three-year running clusterfark is a distinctly bad look.

And the clusterfark’s not over:

FYI: I offered to go on Fox & Friends to answer all questions. I can’t change their viewers on Donald Trump but hoped to give them some actual facts about the FBI. They booked me for tomorrow at 8 am. They just cancelled. Must have read the report.

— James Comey (@Comey) December 9, 2019

Is that true? Nope, said Fox:

Fox News spokesperson disputes @Comey: “James Comey was not booked and was never confirmed to appear on Fox & Friends.”

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 9, 2019

I’m going to guess that the key word in Fox’s statement is “confirmed,” with some sort of tentative appearance on the network having been discussed before being scrapped prior to finalizing it. In any case, Bret Baier has made amends by inviting him publicly on “Special Report” to answer questions. If Comey’s serious about trying to correct the record with Fox viewers that this wasn’t a WITCH HUNT!! but rather a much more familiar instance of bureaucratic incompetence, it’d make more sense to do Baier’s show than F&F. Baier’s viewers might be open, sort of, to an argument that contradicts the network’s received wisdom. Viewers of the president’s favorite morning show won’t be.

Better yet, he should do an interview with Chris Wallace, who said today of the IG report that “The headline is that they didn’t find the things that Bill Barr and Donald Trump alleged.” That’s correct. When the president accuses you of a conspiracy and attempted coup and the AG accuses you of “spying,” the debunking of those claims is necessarily the takeaway from a report that finds less sinister wrongdoing. If you don’t like that, blame Trump for raising expectations. But needless to say, the debunking also isn’t cause for Jim Comey to go into “how ya like me now” mode. Today the dominant emotion in every major player in this saga should be humility, but we can’t find an ounce of it among them collectively.

Two brief clips here of Comey claiming vindication this afternoon on Resistance TV.