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Comey to Fired USA: "I Will Not Sit by"
Writing in an email to former U.S. Attorney for Little Rock Bud Cummins, James Comey explained why he'd felt compelled to defend David Iglesias and other of the fired U.S. attorneys. Comey had given quotes to The Washington Post and other papers praising them.
"I will not sit by and watch good people smeared," Comey wrote in early March. "What's that quotation about all that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent?" You can read their email exchange here.
So that's where we are now. The former deputy attorney general tacitly calling the administration's actions "evil."
Here's video of Comey being questioned about the email from this morning's hearing:
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Josh
Zachary
I can respect integrity a whole lot more than I can the idiots who have sold their souls to Karl Rove and George Bush! Thanks to Mr. Comey for being brave enough to speak out.
May 3, 2007 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
We need more people like Comey. This is why Comey is on Schumer's short list of potential nominees that the Democrats would confirm to replace AG Gonzales.
May 3, 2007 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the third wheel on the bus just fell off with Comey's testimony. Leahy is going to go straight for the jugular. This Administration is repugnant.
O/T: Josh you were terrific in your interview on PBS. Our family was very impressed with you.
Can someone help me? I wrote a comment last night on Huffington Post re: Bush saying he is "the commander"--it was posted around 10:30 pm and today it is gone? It was there last night--there are 24 pages of comments but not mine--are our messages being searched too? Could someone please answer that? Thanks.
May 3, 2007 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the third wheel on the bus just fell off with Comey's testimony. Leahy is going to go straight for the jugular. This Administration is repugnant.
O/T: Josh you were terrific in your interview on PBS. Our family was very impressed with you.
Can someone help me? I wrote a comment last night on Huffington Post re: Bush saying he is "the commander"--it was posted around 10:30 pm and today it is gone? It was there last night--there are 24 pages of comments but not mine--are our messages being searched too? Could someone please answer that? Thanks.
May 3, 2007 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the third wheel on the bus just fell off with Comey's testimony. Leahy is going to go straight for the jugular. This Administration is repugnant.
O/T: Josh you were terrific in your interview on PBS. Our family was very impressed with you.
Can someone help me? I wrote a comment last night on Huffington Post re: Bush saying he is "the commander"--it was posted around 10:30 pm and today it is gone? It was there last night--there are 24 pages of comments but not mine--are our messages being searched too? Could someone please answer that? Thanks.
May 3, 2007 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the third wheel on the bus just fell off with Comey's testimony. Leahy is going to go straight for the jugular. This Administration is repugnant.
O/T: Josh you were terrific in your interview on PBS. Our family was very impressed with you.
Can someone help me? I wrote a comment last night on Huffington Post re: Bush saying he is "the commander"--it was posted around 10:30 pm and today it is gone? It was there last night--there are 24 pages of comments but not mine--are our messages being searched too? Could someone please answer that? Thanks.
May 3, 2007 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh I am so sorry for the multiple posts--but my system kep saying it wasn't accepted. My bad--won't happen again.
May 3, 2007 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
As Mrs. Panstreppon reminded us in an earlier thread, Comey is the guy responsible for the unconstitutional 3-year-long detention and torture of an American citizen. (Jose Padilla.)
That he is now attempting to sell himself as a paragon of virtue and integrity is beyond nauseating.
May 3, 2007 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
'sconset said: I wrote a comment last night on Huffington Post re: Bush saying he is "the commander"--it was posted around 10:30 pm and today it is gone?
It was removed due to profanity. Seems "The Commander" is what GW named his junior member in the south.
May 3, 2007 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yellow Dog: Don't be naive. Nobody is 100% great and neither you, I nor Comey are any exception. To consider someone "beyond nauseating" because s/he does what you prefer one moment and does something you don't like the next is an attitude of continual disappointment. I think you're indulging in extremes, like Bill O'Reilly.
May 3, 2007 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Quote is apocryphal, attributed to Edmun Burke, Bt. Probably didn't say it; should have.
May 3, 2007 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think a similar saying, attributed to Blaise Pascal, is more apt for Ms. Goodling:
"[Wo]Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." A sentiment Mr. Rove seems to be able to manipulate like the serpent in the garden.
May 3, 2007 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
An even more interesting quote attributed to Hannah Arendt; don't know whether she had Eichmann in mind at the time:
"What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core."
May 3, 2007 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm hoping you can post the section he commented on Fitzgerald. I nearly choking on my coffee before I realized it was a joke!
May 3, 2007 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
EH: Wow. I keep reading my comment to find what you seem to think is there, but I can't.
I have never claimed "100 percent great(ness)" for anyone in any forum, much less this one.
I don't believe I've ever said that I like anything Comey has said or done - or even commented at all on anything he's done other than on his attempt to make himself appear the "good man" who stops other people from evil.
And even if he had lived the life of a saint every minute of his life before and after violating the Constitution by condemning a U.S. citizen to three years of torture in secret detention, he would still be beyond nauseating.
To overlook that criminal act because he's now willing to rat out his coworkers and bosses to save his own ass would, indeed, be allowing evil to triumph by doing nothing.
May 3, 2007 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
How many times did he say "I don't recall?"
Not so many, it looks difference when a witness is actually both candid and truthfull. Contrast that Comey's apperance with both Sampson and the Judge and you really can tell more now than ever that the Judge is not either candid or truthfulll.
May 3, 2007 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
YellowD: It would be naive to think that a DAG makes policy at the DOJ and I would look closely at how Comey phrased any discussion when it comes to Padilla's situation or torture in general before you trash the guy.
EH? You know your name is copyrighted in Canada right? Like Eh? Ehhhhhhhhh! Eh man!! Smile. Your on candid camera.
May 3, 2007 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh Marshall claims that so far in his investigation Biskupic is innocent of political conspiracy for prosecuting the "beyond thin" case in Wisconsin claiming the man is clean and has excellent reputation and character. That's "the man". Still, you can tell that like the rest of us, Josh sees that "the case stinks". The two are in conflict because "the man" is not incompetent yet "the case" lacks competency as if any regular USA would not have prosecuted. Plus it was actually out of Biskupic's jurisdiction so he had to go after it...a stretch. So what are we to believe...Mr. clean hands is incompetent or that he was misled or possibly even tricked? Still, he had to see the case had no merit. So what other conclusion can be drawn. It looks like dung, feels like dung, smells like dung, but Josh sez ...I dunno, never found dung here before.
Oh the Irony. Code word: spade (as in afraid to call a spade a spade)
May 3, 2007 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
After watching Comey testify before the House I can only say that I wish that he was AG.
Although I can't respond to the allegation of his involvement in the DOJ's position on torture (I've not heard of his involvement previously), I do recall that he was the one who refused to re-authorize domestic spying.
[see "Palace Revolt" -- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547/site/newsweek/
Comey was also responsible for appointing Fitzgerald to the Plamegate special investigation, and thus preventing the case from being swept under the rug -- and this seems to have been what Libby and Rove were counting on.
In the end, it's my reading of his character that leads me to believe he's a straight-arrow, whose character stands head-and-shoulders above the loyal "Bushies."
May 6, 2007 12:47 AM | Reply | Permalink