The chance came when the investigation into the Plame case arose and he could enable the special counsel to act as AG in power but also to do it unobstructed by media-political-leak influence. The best thing to do at that point was to remove himself as a target of misdirection or bias.

Did you see the Dana Priest story on Friday? I wish it were in today's Sunday spread.

Perhaps results from 'enhanced' interrogations were being used to initiate surveillance? Pure speculation, but here's a curious coincidence of dates:

Behind the scenes, CIA Director Porter J. Goss -- until last year the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee -- has gathered ammunition to defend the program.

After a CIA inspector general's report in the spring of 2004 stated that some authorized interrogation techniques violated international law, Goss asked two national security experts to study the program's effectiveness.

Though on second thought, I wonder if Comey would even have been aware of such debates at CIA.

Priest claims that Bush's covert programs have become the largest in history:

The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world. (snip)

Still [despite widespread criticism], virtually all the programs continue to operate largely as they were set up, according to current and former officials. These sources say Bush's personal commitment to maintaining the GST program and his belief in its legality have been key to resisting any pressure to change course. (snip)

The CIA has stuck with its overall approaches, defending and in some cases refining them. The agency is working to establish procedures in the event a prisoner dies in custody. One proposal circulating among mid-level officers calls for rushing in a CIA pathologist to perform an autopsy and then quickly burning the body, according to two sources. (snip)

"The executive branch will not pull back unless it has to," said a former Justice Department lawyer involved in the initial discussions on executive power.  (snip)

In four years, the GST has become larger than the CIA's covert action programs in Afghanistan and Central America in the 1980s, according to current and former intelligence officials.

I wonder if COmey was forced out, & offered the job at Lockheed to keep him in line, or at least indebted & quiet?

". . . the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are. After all, propaganda is largely directed towards the privileged." -Noam Chomsky