The U.S. is the loser in grudge match between Comey and Trump

Part of the problem: Neither is a paragon of virtue

Even when enormous issues are at stake, the sounds and smells of a mud-wrestling match can be easily distracting. The roar of the peanut gallery is often overpowering.

That’s how it has been between Donald Trump and James Comey in their inelegant shouting match over the fired FBI director’s new tell-all memoir, titled “A Higher Loyalty.”

Part of the problem, of course, is that neither wrestler is a paragon of virtue.

Trump, of course, we already know. A serial liar and narcissist, the only thing that may keep him out of jail in the years ahead will be a presidential pardon.

But Comey is more complicated. In the fullness of his career, he has been a respected prosecutor and justice official engaged in many high-profile cases.

But in the pages of his own memoir, Comey emerges as a flawed hero whose soaring rhetoric about high principles is often undermined by the intrusion of an inflated ego and unwise decision-making.

Comey says in ABC interview that Trump is “morally unfit to be president.”

A veteran of the FBI under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Comey was fired by Trump as FBI director a year ago after honourably refusing to rein in the FBI investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia.

At the time, Trump explained the firing this way to an NBC interviewer: “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.’ ”

To legal analysts, that appears like a casebook example of obstruction of justice.

Perhaps now realizing this, Trump on Wednesday took to Twitter to change his story: “Slippery James B. Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phoney Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!”

In his book’s description of Trump, Comey takes no prisoners. He writes that Trump is “unfit” to be president, “unethical and untethered to the truth and institutional values.”

Recalling his earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob, Comey compares the president to a “mob boss’ in the way he acts: “The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them world view. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that puts the organization above morality and the truth.”

It is this part of Comey’s book that is the most riveting, even though he weakens it by indulging in Trump-like personal putdowns, such as describing Trump’s face as “slightly orange” and his hands as “smaller than his own.”

Comey in his book also fails to provide a persuasive justification for his questionable actions as FBI director in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. By announcing so close to election day that the FBI had reopened the investigation

When the history of this period

is written, Comey’s role will be a controversial one, neither exalted saint nor

unrepentant sinner.

into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Comey quite possibly tilted the election in Trump’s favour.

So when the history of this period is written, Comey’s role will be a controversial one, neither exalted saint nor unrepentant sinner.

But judging the enduring importance of this brawl, let’s not fall back on a false equivalence. Only one man, after all, is president.

In the end, Comey risked his career to warn his country that it must do much better than the current occupant of the White House, and for that, he will be thanked.