With friends like these…

The Grey Lady gives us this discussion of former Deputy Attorney General (and U.S. Attorney in Manhattan) James Comey, notably Comey’s tendency to do things that bite the Bush Administration on the tushy, including appointing Patrick FitzGerald as special prosecutor, praising a group of fired U.S. Attorneys, and of late, testifying before the Sentate Judiciary Committee as to the extraordinarily poor taste shown by Andy Card and (yes!) Alberto “Abu” Gonzales, who showed up in a hospital intensive care unit to try to cajole then Attorney General John Ashcroft into signing off on a warrantless eavesdropping program that even Ashcroft thought was illegal.
There once was a group of Republicans who believed in good government and had some modicum of integrity; Comey harkens back to that group. Obviously, those involved in the most analogous event, the Saturday Night Massacre, William Ruckenshaus and the late Eliot Richardson, or Reagan’s Chief of Staff and Treasury Secretary Don Regan, come to mind as well. Those folks is all dead, or out of government, and are not welcome in the current Republican Party.
And soon, one imagines, there will be no place in it for Mr. Comey, who, notwithstanding his new role as counsel for defense contractor/GOP contributor Lockheed Martin, may well have outlived his usefulness to The Party and Dear Leader.
But who knows? It looks like some cracks may be developing in Fortress Dubya, as even Paul Wolfowitz may soon be thrown under the bus. (Of course, as noted elsewhere, Wolfowitz may be replaced by his girlfriend… )