May 18, 2007

Former OLC head Douglas Kmiec reviews James Comey's testimony and concludes that no one—Comey, Gonzales, nor the hyperventilating critics of the Bush administration who compare it to Watergate—comes off very well.

Update: Marty Lederman has a detailed must-read response with the advantage of not having to comply with op-ed space restrictions; point #4 is particularly interesting.

Update to the update: Kmiec responds in turn. NB this nice paragraph:

[I]f President Reagan or then- campaigning George H.W. Bush had disagreed with my exercise of legal judgment, I would have conceded their authority to override my conclusion without thinking I needed to resign. Of course, if the President seldom found my advice useful, that would be a different matter. As it was, the politics of elections allowed President-elect Bush to make his own unfettered choice of who should and should not be removed from a presidential appointment without explaining himself to me – but then, I may be wandering into another topic that involves Mr. Gonzales.