Month: April 2018

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership by James B. Comey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First things first: I am a conservative Christian. A Baptist Pastor. I live in Alabama, where yard signs for Democrats are as rare as college football championships everywhere else in the country.

So if you’ve already made up your mind where this review is going to go, congratulations: you have been influenced by the media.

See, media, by definition, is “that which stands between.” “Mediator”–someone who stands in the middle between two opposing parties, has the same etymology as “media.” So does “median,” which is a strip of land that divides two streams of traffic going in opposite directions. Which is an appropriate analogy for what the “mainstream media” literally does. It stands between the traffic going left and the traffic going right.

The only way NOT to be influenced by the media is to get your news directly from the source. Most of us will never get an opportunity to talk directly with the main characters in the news. So the next best thing is to read their memoirs. To that end, this year I’ve read “What Happened by Hillary Clinton (worth the read); “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (totally NOT worth the read); “Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years by David Litt (a speechwriter for Obama whose wheelhouse was comedy writing–worth the read) and “Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History by Katy Tur (somewhere in the middle). What all these have in common with Comey’s “A Higher Loyalty” is that they were all written by someone who was actually “there” for the events that were making the news. Clinton’s book and Comey’s book were directly from the POV of the newsmaker; Litt’s and Tur’s were from several rungs down. But still, they represent, at least to some extent, unmediated media.

So, if you really want to make up your mind how you feel about James Comey, stop reading this review, go read the book for yourself, and then let’s talk.

Still here? Oh well, I tried. I guess I’m part of the media now.

So here it is: The book itself is very well written, and makes a compelling case for why the FBI and the Department of Justice must be separate and non partisan. Whether or not you agree with what Comey did with Hillary’s emails, his explanation for what he did and why he did it fits with his worldview and is consistent with what he says he has done throughout his career.

I really can’t say much about the politics. That’s beyond my level of expertise. So let me comment on what IS my area: Comey handles the Bible well. When he writes about the death of his infant son in 1995, he deals with Romans 8:28 and the book of Job with sound theology. When he casually mentions Proverbs 28:1 (“the wicked man flees though none pursue”) in the context of Trump’s over-defensiveness on certain topics, you realize that this guy has more than just a superficial relationship with the Bible. His handling of Scripture was much more skillful than, say, Trump’s (mis)handling of “Two Corinthians” 3:17 at Liberty University.

And for me, that matters. For me, that speaks to Comey’s credibility in his recounting of details. Add to that his quotes from Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, two bedrock Christian ethicists and theologians; his allusion to Martin Luther’s “Here I stand” quote, and the fact that he made Martin Luther King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” required reading for all new FBI recruits, and I am much more likely to take what he says about integrity and honesty seriously. Much more likely than I am to swallow the version of his adversary, who so far is publishing his memoir 140 characters at a time.

As far as the much-maligned comparison of Trump to a mafia don, I can only say that once I realized Comey had ACTUAL experience with mafia dons, I was willing to give Comey the benefit of the doubt.

Comey seems to display a pretty high level of emotional intelligence, and makes a compelling argument for, 1) why it is an indispensable quality for leadership, and 2) how Trump is absolutely lacking in it. His insights into the various leadership styles of George W Bush, Obama, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and John Ashcroft lay a foundation for accepting his negative comparisons to Trump and Jeff Sessions.

I’ll wrap up this review simply by saying that if you want to truly rise above media bias, then you have to get as close as you can to the source material. Read Comey’s memoir, and make up your own mind. Otherwise, just realize you are letting Anderson Cooper and/or Sean Hannity describe for you what the traffic is like on the other side of the MEDIAn.

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