Comey: "devotion to the law trumped political considerations"

now, THERE'S a concept... devotion to the law, something we ought to be able to take for granted with our top justice department officials, right...? ok, i don't think anyone's so naive that they think political leanings and personal opinions don't affect judgment... of course they do... but i've also assumed that, when you are given a position of stewardship over the laws of a nation and the obligation to see that justice is served, you would bend over backwards to keep politics and your own biases out of your work... so, here's comey, obviously (to me, at least) a sincere and dedicated public servant who just so happens to be a republican and a supporter of george bush... does that keep him from doing the right thing...? no... should it have...? no... but just look at the agony and suffering the bush criminal cabal has put a good man through...

Colleagues say Mr. Comey is, even now, a reluctant critic of the administration he served. But they say he feels strongly that there was no justification for the purge of prosecutors and remains furious about what he saw in 2004 as an improper attempt by the White House to bypass the Justice Department.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who led Mr. Comey through his dramatic tale on Tuesday said it was clearly an emotional release for the former No. 2 Justice Department official. “When we asked him about it, it was like a dam broke,” Mr. Schumer said.

“He had been carrying this weight around inside him and wanted the appropriate opportunity to get it off his conscience,” Mr. Schumer added. “When you watched him, he was both pained and relieved.”

Mr. Comey, a former federal terrorism prosecutor in New York and Virginia, is described by colleagues as a solid Republican but one whose devotion to the law trumped political considerations.

Steven R. Peikin, who prosecuted securities fraud cases under Mr. Comey when he was United States attorney in Manhattan, said he found Mr. Comey’s intervention in the N.S.A. program “totally unsurprising.”

“We always joked that Jimmy Stewart’s going to play him in the movie,” Mr. Peikin said. “He’s the picture of rectitude — a charming, engaging, funny guy, but one who set a tone for the office about doing the right thing, not necessarily about winning every case.”

in reading about comey's attempts to find legal justification for bushco's surveillance program and harsh interrogation methods, neither of which i support in the least, i can't say i support the guy's positions... what i DO support wholeheartedly is his effort to stay within the law and the framework of the constitution... THAT is what someone in his position is put there to do and it is deeply wrong to attempt to make someone like that a political and partisan tool...

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