Who Killed

The Covert Comic?

If you’ve ever been killed, you probably have a sense of how life-altering an experience it can be. Being killed frequently results in profound changes in a person’s behavior and relationships, and can fundamentally transform the way that person views his or her place in the world. While each individual responds to being killed in his or her own unique way, everybody who’s been killed agrees on one thing: being killed changes one’s life forever.

In the case of CIA officer a.k.a. the Covert Comic, being killed seems to have awakened a greater awareness and appreciation of the transitory nature of material existence, as well as a recognition of the need to more deeply examine his life – and death – in order to better understand the meaning of his killing (and potentially enable him to avoid being killed again, if he so chooses, in the future).

The following document details relevant events, statements by witnesses, as well as the Covert Comic’s own observations and reflections. This document may be updated pending new developments in the investigation into who killed the Covert Comic.

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Who Killed the Covert Comic?

Because he worked for the US Intelligence Community and therefore wasn’t very well known outside government circles, the list of suspects can mostly be limited to those who attended his intel briefings, interacted with him by classified e-mail, or had lunch with him in the CIA cafeteria.

… In other words, at this point I’m thinking the Covert Comic probably committed suicide. – Anonymous CIA official

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Attending a classified briefing on weapons proliferation can be a sobering experience. Especially if the liquor runs out. – Opening joke, Homeland Security Agency conference

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According to scientists, we spend nearly two hours each day blinking. To avoid distraction I get all my blinking done by 7:00 a.m.

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Never assume your briefing audience is less intelligent than you are. Carefully vet and edit the invite list to make sure.

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Agency people typically don’t wear shades at work, but he wore them all the time. He used to say: “If I took off my sunglasses, everyone else would have to put on theirs.” – Anonymous CIA official

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Disinformation? Don’t I always?

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A hot-looking walk-in approached me at the embassy and proposed sex for secrets. At first I hesitated, but her information was pretty good.

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I always think before I speak. I always think “I think I’ll speak now.”

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A covert operation is only as effective as its worst operative. The worse your worst operative, the more effective your covert operation.

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Everybody wants to see the big picture. Nobody wants to smell the big scratch-and-sniff.

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Who says you can’t negotiate with terrorists? I just traded one for a deputy foreign minister and cash! – [Context classified]

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In addition to his job, he was passionate about writing and posting on intel-related web sites. He used to get up hours before dawn to do it. I heard the Agency gave him grief about it occasionally.

I asked him once what kind of content he was posting. He told me: “Black graffiti on a black helicopter.” – Anonymous CIA official

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"The Covert Comic - I officially don't want him killed."

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Why Was the Covert Comic Killed?

One thing we can be certain of: the Covert Comic wasn’t killed because he knew too much. – Anonymous CIA official

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Name:

Agency: CIA

Favorite quote: Knowledge is power.

Favorite song: ‘Fight the Power’

– Name tag he filled out at an interagency conference

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During the rendition controversy he was at a diplomatic function and someone asked him his view on torture and the CIA.

He said: “It depends who at CIA you’re torturing.” – Anonymous CIA official

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I bet the spirit animal of most animals is that same species of animal.

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The only difference between ‘leader’ and ‘dealer’ is where you place the letters.

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To die if you get shot in the head, that’s natural isn’t it? – Explaining why he cabled HQS that a deceased asset had died of natural causes

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Nobody plans to fail, they just fail to plan. Therefore, always plan to fail to fail to plan. 

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A military attaché from a Third World country asked him if it was true that the Agency was researching how to read people’s minds.

He said: “Don’t imagine for a second that CIA can detect your thoughts.

… Imagine it for at least 2.5 seconds so we can calibrate our monitors.” – Anonymous CIA official

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When I was a kid I never knew where my next meal was coming from. Restaurant, delivery, catered – it seemed like every meal came from a different place.

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Wanna hunker under the covers in my cut-and-cover bunker? – Officially nowhere near Syria

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Philadelphia is just the tip of the Pittsburgh.

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Let’s please have everyone line up and form an ascending spiral. – While leading a team building exercise

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In our conference room at Langley there was a framed quote by a famous sci-fi writer:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

Unbeknownst to anyone, he replaced it with the quote:

Reality is that which, as soon as you start believing in it, goes away.

Exact same font; nobody noticed the change. Last time I checked it was still there. – Anonymous CIA official

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Never compromise your principles. Maintain their cover at all times.

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How Was the Covert Comic Killed?

I assume he would have perished while giving an intelligence briefing.

... I mean, nobody could tell jokes like that and not expect to die onstage. – Anonymous CIA official

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Whatever hardens your structure.

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I support transparency in government. I’ve been known to help make governments practically invisible.

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America has never lost a war. We just misplaced a couple temporarily.

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In Washington DC, you long long for a brief brief.

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It seemed like his cover was constantly getting blown.

He used to joke “My cover has all the fun.” – Anonymous CIA official

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Papa was a rollin’ stone. But he generally confined his rollin’ to the TV room and kitchen.

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Visited new tech site; site manager confirmed fully configured, turned on and ready for operations. And she said the site was ready too. – Ops report

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I’ve never understood how some intel officers can shatter lives and then just submit an expense form. Whenever I try to do that, Central Travel always makes me attach receipts.

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Melvin. – When asked by his first grade teacher to name an animal that lives in Africa

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We were in the Ops Center when a headline came across one of the news services: “Massive Explosion Rocks Moscow.”

He said: “Wonder if their songs are on iTunes.” – Anonymous CIA official

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Contrary to popular perception, HUMINT is not acquired by means of sex, though you can get it from sitting on a public toilet.

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The Super Bowl has become so commercialized, its religious meaning is in danger of being lost completely.

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“Bond. James Bond.”

Corny? Sure. But you have to admit it sounds better than “Fleming. Ian Fleming.”

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One intelligence analyst’s Analytic Outreach is another’s nonconsensual groping.

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Director’s cut? Let’s hope it’s a major artery. 

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She walked into my life like a shopper walking into a locked glass door twenty minutes before the store opens. – Ops report

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The sentence ‘Lying on a beach chair, drink in hand, the sun slowly sank below the horizon’ is not a dangling modifier. I’ve seen the sun kick back like that plenty of times.

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But if you could care less about what happens to me, I’d make it worth your while. – During arrest by a foreign security service

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Never let power go to your head. There are much better parts of you for power to go to.

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Hey! Oil! – Kidding around during excavation of a suspected chemical munitions dump in Iraq

Anonymous expression of solidarity

Berlin Wall Memorial, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

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When Was the Covert Comic Killed?

When wasn’t the Covert Comic killed? – Anonymous CIA official

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What’s the use of a pointee-talkee if your talkee has no pointee? 

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Oh what a tangled web’s resultant, when first we hire a weaving consultant.

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Upon our nation’s moral fiber depends our nation’s moral regularity.

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During our first week of Career Trainee orientation, the speaker from Office of Security said: “Contrary to what you may have heard, the fact that you possess CIA clearances does not mean Security is obsessed with your sex life.”

He leaned over and whispered: “Talk about a disappointment.” – Anonymous CIA official

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Non grata, still working on persona.

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Attempted to change the subject, but despite being soiled, subject loudly resisted. – Ops report

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He who laughs last thinks slowest?

How do you know he isn’t laughing first?

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There’s no business like show business, but there’s lots ‘o businesses like matzo businesses.

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Eighty percent of success is showing up. The other twenty percent is giving the wrong address to the competition.

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December 12^th is International Day of Neutrality. It could have been another date, but nobody had a preference one way or the other.

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Interestingly, his homicide was not ruled a death. – Anonymous CIA official

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You say ‘confusion agent’ like there’s some other kind.

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Believe me, if CIA wanted you to disappear, you’d already be working in the Office of Congressional Affairs Liaison Group.

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We don’t have to live in fear. We can move out to the suburbs and commute to fear instead.

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The future is now! As for now, it should be arriving shortly.

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Diplomacy and covert action don’t mix. They bond chemically.

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This is critical intelligence – it’s been bad-mouthing me ever since I collected it.

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Michelangelo, and a guy named Guido, both obtained their marble from the same Italian quarry. But what each man saw in that marble made the difference between a statue gathering dust in a museum, and the calcite nano-compounds that saved our galaxy from the dreaded Venusian Hell-Beam. – Motivational comment to new hires

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Inside CIA Operations Center: classified intelligence cables, television updates, and a makeshift memorial

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What Were You Doing When You Learned the Covert Comic Had Been Killed?

Officially not killing the Covert Comic, what else? – Anonymous CIA official

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A good backstop is the better part of discretion.

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Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Walk all over me; I like it.

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He barely escaped death in a car crash in South America. I remember him saying: “After my accident, the doctors told me I shouldn’t be alive. It wasn’t a medical opinion – they were expressing a deeply held personal belief.” – Anonymous CIA official

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Oh for a book and a shady nook? Oh for a shady bookie and some nookie.

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He’ll hem and he’ll haw and he’ll yes-and-no your house down. – Dissing an intelligence analyst

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Let’s schedule a meeting to disgust the proposal. – At the UN

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In my opinion, a woman doesn’t deserve the title of supermodel until she proves she can actually fly.

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They had a Father’s Day essay contest at CIA Headquarters. The topic was ‘You’re a father if …’

He sent in a one-line entry. It said: “You were the last guy with me on Saturday night.”

It didn’t win. – Anonymous CIA official

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If there’s one prediction we can safely make about the future, it’s that guarding the self-destruct mechanism will continue to be a remarkably low-paying job.

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Out of context?! But I just filled up with context this morning! 

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Sooner or later, we all die from complications of being ourselves.

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My SWOT analysis got swotted. – After briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff

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‘Political asylum’ – talk about a redundancy.

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When fortune smiles on you, check to see if she’s licking her chops.

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How Will the Covert Comic Be Remembered?

Who? – Anonymous CIA official

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Nothing to be here, move along.

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They say dead intelligence assets disclose no secrets. 

... Maybe that’s the problem with my intelligence assets.

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The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated that anonymity’s condition was stable.

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At most. – His manager, answering a question on the Covert Comic’s performance evaluation: ‘Does he/she qualify as an Intermittent Federal Employee?’

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A CIA officer will take a secret to the grave – provided that grave has been officially certified as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.

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If the CIA isn’t a force for truth, what is it good for? (Truth I mean, not the CIA.)

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The universe is 9% helium. We’re all talking in squeaky voices all the time.

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The Covert Comic? He was the original mission creep. – Anonymous CIA official

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Education is the progressive discovery of our own ignorance? There’s another thing I didn’t know!

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I googled the quote ‘Power means not having to respond.’ Nothing happened.

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If some choose to call me a Renaissance man, let it be for my work on behalf of human advancement (and not for my stockings, Tudor bonnet and cod piece).

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WTF, except W = ‘Whither.’

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Don’t touch me – I don’t know where I’ve been.

 

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If they ever write my biography, it’ll be one huge black smudge.

… And that’s pre-redaction. – The Covert Comic

If you’ve ever become immortal, you probably have a sense of how life-altering an experience it isn’t. Becoming immortal rarely results in noticeable changes in a person’s behavior or relationships, and almost never fundamentally transforms the way that person views his or her place in the world. While each individual responds to becoming immortal in his or her own unique way, everybody who obtains immortality agrees on one thing: becoming immortal is definitely no big deal.

  

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Whatever kills me makes me funnier.

 

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Mistaken identity? As if every identity isn’t a mistake.

 

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I’m not bitter. I’m more umami.

 

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My theory on what happened to the Covert Comic: everybody knows getting clicks can get you killed. On the other hand, getting killed always gets you clicks.

He used to work the system in order to replace his cover every couple of years. This probably gave him the idea of ‘dying’ so people would visit his web site. I bet he’s TDY somewhere preparing to get killed again as we speak. – Anonymous CIA official 

 

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I resent the slandering of my good name – especially when I have so many bad ones available.

  

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A nasal cavity for a nasal cavity makes the whole world anosmic. – On why his death should not be avenged

 

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Veni, vidi, vomui. I came, I saw, I experienced acute nausea.

   

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I was born free. Looking back, I should’ve at least charged expenses.

    

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Jack Handey said: “I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it.”

I hope life is a big joke, because I get it.

  

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Seeing is be leaving.

  

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That one. – Responding to the proverbial query: ‘If you could ask God just one question, what would it be?’

 

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Don’t stop me before I’m killed again!