Did Comey Doom the FBI, or Did FBI Agents Doom Comey?

I am a child of the 60's.  I imbibed the distrust of authority - FBI included.  After all, and for instance, they spied on Martin Luther King; looking for something, anything, to discredit equality.

In the early '80s I was a witness to an international incident that brought me into contact with real life FBI agents.  Sure they were more Brooks Brothers than I ever have been; but they were nice, didn't bullshit me, and they earned my respect.

Until now.  After some 35-ish years, I find myself reverting to my earliest reflections on that department....  authoritarian...  anti-democratic...  power with a purpose and goal.

Of course, this is due to the unnerving departure from predicate, policy, and protocol, embodied in Comey's wishy-washy statement last week about emails found a month earlier on Anthony Wiener's laptop --- Comey's statement made even BEFORE they got a search warrant in order to ascertain whether anything was worth looking at.

Shameless.

The constant and continuing leaks from 'FBI sources'.  Shameless.

The lies now being offered by the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and of course trump on the stump.  Shameless.

Comey's unwillingness to now set the record straight.  Shameless.

Reports are that the FBI is in outright revolt.  Against Comey?  Against Hilliary?  Against America?

Comey reportedly, leak-wise, objected to disclosing that Putin's Russia was behind the email hacks of the DNC -- because it was too close to the election.

Comey obviously supported the disclosure this time - 8 days before a Presidential election.  This, even though they were looking at whether OR NOT Wiener's laptop emails pertained to Clinton's god damned personal email (for personal email) server .  This, even though the FBI had not read any emails on Weiner's laptop, because they had no warrant to do so.

These two positions are not consistent if one uses the 60 day, non-election-interference, policy as a guide.  It is only consistent if one uses a screw-Hillary rule as a guide.

Comey's reputation is gone.  The FBI's reputation is gone.  And, you know, sometimes the only thing that stands between cooperation with authorities and standing up to authority is trust.  Trust is gone.

I'm older now.  The younger folks are the ones who will have to suffer under a trump regime; at least longer than I.  Even if trump is not elected, they will figure out in time, how they and what they hold dear, have suffered under an authoritarian FBI.