COMEY WEEK: James Comey’s Empty Ethics
James Comey is the worst kind of sanctimonious. Although bland enough to literally blend in with the curtains, the former FBI director is building a reputation as a #resistance hero by offering vague, anti-Trump bromides that are agreeable on the surface, but only if you’re younger than ten years old and don’t think about them for more than fifteen consecutive seconds. His big thing is ethical leadership — that we need honest, upstanding citizens who are principled and truly practice what they preach. But let’s look at the cornball nonsense he preaches, shall we?
Comey loves to cite Reinhold Niebuhr as a justification, as if referring to a well-known theologian makes his own thoughts enlightened by association. But here’s the thing: Comey doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about when he talks about Niebuhr.
Niebuhr explained that, realistically, people of faith in the public sphere cannot be entirely above the fray and are forced to make compromises to achieve their political ends. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s study of Niebuhr led him to focus on pragmatic goals even while working towards the realization of his messianic ones. Fellow Niebuhr admirer Comey is no Martin Luther King, Jr. He apparently views Niebuhr’s talk of the impossibility of purity in politics as a license to do whatever he wants without any trace of actual self-criticism. It’s a cynical and gross reading of Niebuhr’s work. Not only is Comey unbearably and undeservedly pious, he’s also dumb and bad at reading, even when it comes to his professed favorite theologian.
James Comey is far from the worst figure in American politics today, but he may be the most frustrating. If I could yell at him to his face, he’d probably just sit placidly and tell me that I’m not acting dignified enough in criticizing him. And that only makes me angrier because such stolidity is weird and irresponsible at this moment in history. Also, if he were to read this piece, instead of actually engaging with any of my actual criticisms, he’d likely just tell me that I shouldn’t be so mad.
Not only is Comey’s sense of moral rightness annoying in and of itself, it is also completely unearned. He led the FBI, which is one of the grossest institutions in American history. You know, the FBI? That upstanding organization that tried to get Martin Luther King, Jr. to kill himself, conspired to murder Fred Hampton, and is currently surveilling Black Lives Matter activists? It takes an unbelievable lack of self-criticism or an extreme level of self regard to head up that morally bankrupt institution and think that’s earned you the right to speak to anyone about their own morals. His total lack of self-awareness is not his worst quality, but it’s the one that enables all the other nonsense to flow so freely.
Opposing Trump is not in and of itself special, notable, or praiseworthy. It merely shows that you are, at minimum, not a craven and gross person, that you have a mild aversion to an administration whose horrific policies are preying on the most vulnerable members of our population, leaving them in an even more precarious place than they were before Trump entered office. I’m not impressed by opposition to Trump on its own, as no truly ethical — yeah, I’ll borrow Comey’s preferred buzzword — person could do anything besides oppose Trump. Comey and his purportedly principled acolytes and admirers should do more than wring their hands about the fact that Trump isn’t reading the Bible enough or fulfilling whatever other empty gestures they expect of him. Comey doesn’t stand for anything more than a desire for an empty, pressed suit with good manners and respectably coiffed hair to occupy the Oval Office. If that’s what Comey’s deepest principles lead him to hope for, then maybe he should get some better principles.
