His human side comes across

The former FBI director even comes off as self-deprecating before Senate panel.

On TV, James Comey didn’t look anything like our long-held images of a G-man during testimony Thursday.

An employee felt uncomfortable being alone in a room with the boss.

The boss, who is a very powerful man, made an inappropriate request.

The employee tried to placate him but ultimately resisted and was fired.

And then, while being cross-examined in public about the incident, the former employee is shamed again when asked: “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

No, it’s not the Bill Cosby trial or a new, sordid allegation against Roger Ailes.

It’s the testimony of former FBI director James Comey, who appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. In a written statement released a day earlier, Comey said he’d felt pressured by his then-boss, President Donald Trump, who “hoped” he would drop a criminal investigation against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Comey didn’t push back during the talk, but he also didn’t drop the investigation.

“Why didn’t you stop and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong?’ ” Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the 6-foot-8 Comey on Thursday. “You’re big, you’re strong. I know the Oval Office, and I know what happens to people when they walk in. There is a certain amount of intimidation. But why didn’t you stop and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong — I cannot discuss that with you’?”

“Maybe if I were stronger, I would have,” Comey said.

And in that statement a great truth was revealed: the head of the FBI — an organization we’d all always assumed was full of stoic, foreboding men who spoke in code (“the red dog flies at night”) — is human, and even a little self-deprecating.

Even when recounting how he’d ultimately defied Trump by refusing to drop the Flynn investigation, Comey didn’t want to overstate his power.

“I don’t want to make it sound like I’m Captain Courageous,” Comey said.

Up against the hubris of his former boss and other