The "Comey Moment"

       Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. - William Shakespeare          ​

​         History has its eyes on you.   - Lin-Manuel Miranda

      Whether what former FBI director James Comey has had thrust upon him - or perhaps achieved by the hand he himself has chosen to play - should be called greatness or infamy depends upon where one's political persuasions fall as well as  which of  Comey's public actions one is judging.
      But there can be no doubt that on Thursday, June 8, 2017 from mid-morning through early afternoon history,  and much of our country,

...had its eyes on James Comey as he testified before Congress in the investigation of collusion between the Trump administration and  Russia.  

     The compelling moments were many, such as Comey's passionate, heart-stirring oration reminding us that we Americans “have this big, messy, wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time. But nobody tells us what to think, what to fight about, what to vote for except other Americans, and that's wonderful and often painful." 
     And then, sounding like a voice crying out in the wilderness,  he warned us with chilling words of Russia's designs on the United States and again appealed to our patriotism and love of our country:

​     "But we're talking about a foreign government that, using technical intrusion, lots of other methods, tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act. That is a big deal. And people need to recognize it. It's not about Republicans or Democrats. They're coming after America, which I hope we all love equally. They want to undermine our credibility in the face the world. They think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them. So they're going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible. That's what this is about and they will be back. Because we remain — as difficult as we can be with each other, we remain that shining city on the hill. And they don't like it. "

     Then there was Comey's shocking testimony - well, maybe not all that shocking - that he took careful notes of his meetings with Donald Trump because he believed Trump would later lie about what was said,

​...as well as  John McCain's questioning during which Senator McCain, sounding doddering, befuddled, and very old, struggled to follow a train of thought and express a coherent sentence.

​   And then immediately after the hearing there was the painfully mortifying image of poor Paul Ryan falling on his sword yet again for Donald Trump,

...supplicating the American people to accept  the scraped-from-the-bottom-of-the-barrel excuse for Trump's lack of ethics on the fact that Trump "is just new to all this," and is "learning as he goes."

     But from among all the captivating moments of James Comey's hearing, in truth there was one revelation above all the rest that hit me like an epiphany.  This epiphany came to me when James Comey, when asked why he did not tell Donald Trump that the President asking the head of the FBI to drop an investigation was  wrong, admitted,
     "Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took in....Maybe if I did it again, I'd do better...I didn't have the presence of mind... I don't know if I would have said to the president with the presence of mind, sir, that's wrong. In the moment, it didn't come to my mind. What came to my mind is be careful what you say. "
     And I thought, Oh, my goodness! James Comey is kicking himself over what he should've, could've, would've said - just like I do all the time!  In that sweaty, awkward, intimidating but critical moment  James Comey choked  - Just like I would've!
      I actually felt quite a bit of empathy for James Comey in his admission of his human frailty at that moment, even as I wished that he would have been braver,  more heroic, more in possession of the courage of his convictions than I or most people for that matter would have been in his shoes.
      Eric Zorn, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, evidently also understood what happened to James Comey in that decisive moment and has coined the term "Comey Moments" for those  times "when you find yourself facing the choice of taking a risk, sticking by your principles and speaking out at a critical time, or going along to get along."
      I think having such a term in one's psychological lexicon could be empowering the next time one  faces such a moment.  So maybe James Comey can take some consolation that in his moment of weakness he may have helped the rest of us be a little stronger in our future "Comey Moments."

References:
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/full-text-james-comey-trump-russia-testimony-239295

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/06/08/john-mccain-questions-james-comey-sot.cnn

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/politics/paul-ryan-donald-trump-new-to-this/index.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-zorn-comey-coward-trump-perspec-jm-20170608-column.html

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