James Comey is a man obsessed with his own myth

Oh, dear. The myth that James Comey has sedulously cultivated of himself—the ascetic warrior for truth, the vigilant sentinel of liberty—is coming in for a bit of a pounding today. In his report to Congress on Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation, the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded, “While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice.”

Comey’s recent memoir was titled A Higher Loyalty, but his highest loyalty seems to have been to his image of himself as a pillar of rectitude. Speaking of pillars, perhaps Comey might want to climb one if he remains obsessed with trying to maintain a saintly image. He might consider emulating Simeon Stylites who hunkered down on top of a pillar near Aleppo for almost four decades.