"The Jimmy Stewart What if the president wants an attorney general who
absolutely reeks of wholesomeness and integrity; someone who is both of the Bush
worldview and also somewhat above it? This is the come-hither for former Deputy
Attorney General James Comey. With his spring testimony about the hospital room
confrontation between Gonzales and his former boss John Ashcroft, Comey has
become the heartthrob of the political and legal left—even though he once gunned
for the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui and argued that José Padilla had no
right to a defense lawyer. There is no one who doesn't believe that Comey is a
belt and suspenders Ashcroft conservative. But so what, because there is also no
one who believes that he's a White House doormat. In a sense, that makes Comey
the perfect compromise candidate. Congressional Democrats are so desperately in
love with him that they'd tiptoe around his politics. Conservatives could see a
true believer whose principal conviction is that the independence of the Justice
Department from the White House borders on sacred. As Comey once testified, 'If
that [partisan firings of U.S. attorneys] was going on, it strikes at the core
of what the department is. You can't have assistant U.S. attorneys in there
based on their party affiliation. … You just cannot have that . . . I don't know
any way you can get the department's reputation back about that.' Comey's sweet
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington idealism would be a tonic for the White House; it
would affirm that the old way was the wrong way. "
I don't know if the White House would go for it, he has earned the trust of congress it would seem. This is from an article talking about potential replacements for Gonzo. This is the first time that I have seen or heard the name Comey come up, but I think it would be a great fit.
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