It's June 2013, and President Obama is about to nominate a new director of the FBI, James

Comey.

Most pundits praise the choice.

Comey is widely respected as a dedicated and principled law man, who has deputed Attorney

General, famously stood up to President George W. Bush to block the renewal of a warrantless

wiretapping program that Justice Department lawyers had concluded was illegal.

It seemed exactly the kind of fiercely independent judgment impervious to political pressure that

you want from somebody running the country's premier law enforcement agency.

But there was also an undercurrent of dissent.

Questions about Comey from some of his former colleagues.

In a pressian article in the Daily Beast, a veteran journalist spoke to some of Comey's

detractors, all of them on background, and reported some of their concerns.

In their view, the journalist wrote, Comey was, quote, a gunslinging prosecutor who

was coaxure and possesses an overweaning sense of his own righteousness.

They contend further that Comey took a narrow legal dispute and imbued it with high drama

and grave portent in an effort to burnish his reputation.

These critics say his actions reflect an unyielding, black and white approach to morality.

Here is qualities in someone who could soon possess the police powers of the FBI.

Period.

This week, the debate about Comey is about to dominate Washington as the former FBI director,

who was fired last year by President Trump in a peek about the Russian investigation,

is about to release his book, A Higher Loyalty.

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