(This was originally written as a comment on Booman’s recent post, “James Comey Isn’t Helping.” It grew, and here it is as a standalone.)
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James Comey? Hmmmmmmm…
First of all, as far as the FBI is concerned I have it from a real, honest, widely experienced and intelligent country detective…someone that I know very well…that most FBI investigators are so full of themselves that they are basically incompetent outside of their own little “F.B.I.ville” world.
F.B.I.ville hasn’t really come very far from J. Edgar Hooverville. Bet on it. It’s just bigger.
So it goes.
I have no trust in them whatsoever, as a true investigative force.
That said…as far as Comey is concerned, he is a typical cop-family, academically intelligent Irish Catholic of his generation. Believe me, I know those folks. I grew up with them, in a somewhat similar family and area.
From Wikipedia
His grandfather, William J. Comey, was an officer and later commissioner of the Yonkers Police Department.
—snip—
Comey graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1982, majoring in chemistry and religion. His senior thesis analyzed the liberal theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and the conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell, emphasizing their common belief in public action.
And, after becoming an attorney:
He joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he worked from 1987 to 1993. While there, he served as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and helped prosecute the Gambino crime family.
Read on.
So…currently practicing Catholic or not (I have no info on the matter.), he is the archetype of the “morally correct” Irish lawyers who…along with their Italian Catholic lawyer brethren and a whole host of similar but not-quite-so-smart Irish and Italian cops…successfully fought the mainstream Mafia to a sort of defeat on the East Coast in the latter part of the 20th century.
They are true believers, most of them.
I knew him the moment I heard him interviewed on ABC. He is genuinely horrified at the rotted-out morality of people like Trump. Is he also a self-serving son of a bitch? I have no doubt, although I am quite sure that he would put it another way. “You go along to get along” is a concept that is drummed into young Catholics from the get-go. He hasn’t risen through the DC bureaucracy as far as he has managed to travel without maximizing every advantage that he could identify. He’s 55 now and realizes that this is probably his last chance to really cash in, and he’s pushing all his chips onto the table. Also imbued in young Irish Catholics particularly is the concept that a good offense is the best defense. Like most successful Irish boxers, he’ll take a few punches in order to get in one really good one.
But is he in any way lying?
I don’t buy it.
But at the same time, is he telling the whole truth?
I doubt it.
Remember, he’s a professional liar…errr, ahhh, I mean lawyer, of course.
He’s arguing his own case, but I think that he believes in it at a cellular level.
Make up your own minds.
He’s certainly the best anti-Trump witness to appear in public so far.
By miles!!!
I hope he helps to take Trump down, cashes in and retires to some form of the Irish Riviera, myself.
He’s earned it.
Good on him!!!
Later…
AG
