How not to do this

In the world of political Washington, one of the most foreboding things that can happen to anyone is to have their boss say they’re 100 percent behind them. Goodbye, FBI Director Comey. President Donald Trump’s peremptory firing of James Comey is a complete homemade mess enabling a long list of the usual congressional suspects of both parties, who dislike this president anyway, to strut, preen and opine on this week’s hot topic while avoiding normal duties.

It’s a boon, too, to the obsessive D.C. media. And a potential disaster to a chief executive who once again has made himself the center of a raging and completely unnecessary political tornado, this time over the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency.

The incident also underscores the desperate need for an influential adult aide by this headstrong president’s side who can say with effect, “No! Let’s think this through.” Forget his silly tweets. Some had hoped family members like son-in-law Jared Kushner or daughter Ivanka might play this role. Or chief of staff Reince Priebus. Apparently not. That someone could have whispered—or shouted if necessary—“Sir, with all due respect, you can’t fire the man you’ve consistently endorsed on tardy charges of poor job performance right as he seeks more money to investigate your presidential campaign for Russian influence.”

“Very simply,” Trump said tersely Wednesday, “he was not doing a good job.”

So here come those bothersome follow-up questions: How exactly was Comey performing poorly? If you’re really firing Comey for poor performance on the Clinton email scandal last year, why didn’t you just let him go during the January transition? Perfect time. Everyone expects personnel changes then. No fuss.

Or use Comey’s huge mistake in testimony last week, misleading Congress on the scale of Huma Abedin’s forwarding of national security emails. The Justice Department had to publish a correction.

Remember the huge controversy over President Barack Obama firing Kathleen Sebelius for so totally botching the Obamacare rollout and its laughable website? Of course not. Because he let the dust settle, then sent her off with appreciation and gracious, insincere praise.

Instead with Comey, a brand-new deputy attorney general suddenly produces a damning but thinly sourced memo justifying the director’s discharge 10 months after his alleged malfeasance that helped Trump get elected.

Then the White House announces Comey’s firing so he sees it on TV in Los Angeles while speaking to FBI employees. You realize, Mr. President, this will also thoroughly alienate someone and his colleagues who know an awful lot about you and who are real pros at the Washington game of leak?

And you do this without a full explanation, without a convincing list of ethical or incompetent acts and without even the slimmest public list of possible successors? At an overheated time on Capitol Hill guaranteeing partisan confirmation hearings on any successor?

Other than all that, the Trump administration handled this bureaucratic execution with skill and great aplomb.