James Comey, departing a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week, stepped into a knot of reporters and network news cameras staked-out in the corridor. In response to a journalist’s question he said, with his voice rising:
This is the president of the U.S. calling a witness who is cooperating with his own Justice Department a ‘rat.’ Say that again to yourself at home and remind yourself where we have ended up…
In Comey’s vexed response I could hear the echo of Joseph Welch’s withering challenge to Senator Joe McCarthy at the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954:
Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
I’m not sure whether I really watched that exchange back then. I think I remember the scene playing out on the screen of our black and white TV. But no matter, I have seen the news footage so many times by now that it is easy to replay the words again now.
Welch, a civilian lawyer representing the US Army against McCarthy’s accusation of lax security at a military facility, had just demanded that the senator’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, produce a list of alleged communists.
McCarthy stepped in to divert attention from Welch’s effort to call Cohn’s bluff. The senator accused Welch of harboring a communist sympathizer in his own blue blood law firm. If you needed to put your finger on the tipping point when the national anti-communist fever broke, it would be Welch’s indignation at that. While blacklists lingered, McCarthy’s assault effectively ended with Welch’s question.
Since then we’ve learned a great deal about the cascading changes set off when a tipping point is reached. Cohn, of course, resurfaced years later as the young Donald Trump’s attorney who infamously tutored the future POTUS 45 in the fine art of gaslighting.
That is why Comey’s indignation has got my attention right now. It is difficult for me to admit my appreciation for his upright defense of American values—after all, as FBI director this man advantaged President Trump’s presidential candidacy when he carelessly put his hand on the electoral scale with public pronouncements about Hilary Clinton’s email. Even so, I am happy to give Comey credit if this becomes the tipping point that brings down Trump’s presidency.
Throughout this year I have often felt hopeless witnessing this administration’s cruelty. Trump’s policies have caused so many hardships for the people and causes I care about. But in Comey’s speech I hear my frustration echoing and growing into something potentially powerful.
Who knows whether we will look back on this as the tipping point that changes the course of history. As our current commander-in-chief might proclaim: “maybe it will and maybe it won’t.” What’s different now is that even if it doesn’t, the momentum has shifted: this presidency is self-destructing.
And that, finally, gives me hope in the dark.
Leave a comment: