I think that I screwed up when I wrote several days ago that it might be a good idea for us to cut current FBI director James Comey a little slack on the letter that he sent to certain Congressional leaders on Friday, Oct. 28 in which he said reopened the Pandora’s Box on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Now it seems that Comey may be on a mission to clearly do political harm to Clinton. No sooner had the Weiner tie-in with the e-mails found its way to the press than Comey released information on a clearly ill-advised pardon that President Bill Clinton gave on his last day in office to financier Marc Rich. Comey is clearly a man who must be judged by his deeds rather than his words, because he simple ain’t talking. In that respect, he is a straight arrow about doing his job by the book.

I think that my problem in correctly understanding Comey comes from my attachment to a television show that ran from 1965 – 1974. It was aptly named “The F.B.I.” and it literally starred a character from central casting, Ephrem Zimbalist, Jr. Zimbalist and the character he played, Lewis Erskine, had a profound impact on my post-adolescent mind. Perhaps my problem was that I allowed Erskine to be my “boy hero” long past the time for such reverence. As a teenager, I was smart enough to know that J. Edgar Hoover was bloviating myth, but I desperately wanted the head of the F.B.I. to be someone I could respect. Well into my 20s, Zimbalist was my man.

Back to the real world. Comey gained my admiration in 2004 when as assistant Attorney-General to John Ashcroft, he stood between the attorney general, bed-ridden in intensive care, and two key White House aides in the George W. Bush administration.  White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., wanted Ashcroft to sign off on Bush’s reauthorization of the domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determine was illegal. Comey kept the two from steam-rolling Ashcroft and the result was that the domestic surveillance program was not renewed at that time.

There obviously was another part of me wondering how good could Comey be if he was the Number Two person to the Bible-thumping reality-challenged Attorney General from Missouri. But then again, I had seen some decent Republicans in my day including Charles Percy, Jacob Javits, Earl Warren and John Lindsay. These are all people who would not have been let into the Quicken Arena in Cleveland last July for the Republican National Convention because they wouldn’t check their empathy at the door.

I should have known that if Comey was in the good graces of Bush and Ashcroft, that he was not an upstanding fellow like Lewis Erskine from “The F.B.I.” But if I was fooled, I was in good company with the likes of perhaps America’s best judge of character, Barack Obama.

The old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” seems to apply here. So I guess that my feelings for Comey have gone from bewilderment to something called “pissed empathy.”

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In baseball, it’s often said that you have to be a good pitcher to be a twenty game loser. The reason is simple; if you weren’t good, the manager wouldn’t send you out to the mound twenty times with the expectation that you’d give your team a chance of winning.

Who is the last presidential candidate of either major political party who was good enough to lose two consecutive elections? The answer is Democrat Adlai Stevenson, Jr. of Illinois. He lost to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.

To get a sense of how progressive he was, we can examine his explanation of his religious views:

He classified himself as a Unitarian and said. “I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince others that there’s nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless. Here lies the power of the liberal way: not in making the whole world Unitarian [Universalist], but in helping ourselves and others to see some of the possibilities inherent in viewpoints other than one’s own; in encouraging the free interchange of ideas; in welcoming fresh approaches to the problems of life; in urging the fullest, most vigorous use of critical self-examination.”

This is clearly one of the main tenets of the progressive movement. He was open-minded and looked to bridge differences rather than fight over them.

Stevenson served as governor of Illinois from 1949-1953. He worked to protect civil liberties, but gained special recognition for cracking down on illegal gambling, improving state highways, and reorganizing the state police. He was remarkably popular, despite being described by many as an “egghead intellectual.” He charmed people with his self-deprecating humor.  In one speech, he joked, “eggheads of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your yolks!”

When President Harry Truman decided in early 1952 to run for a second full term, he met with Governor Stevenson and, following the meeting, Truman decided to support Stevenson for president. Others had initiated a “draft Stevenson” movement. Stevenson sealed the deal at the Chicago convention, where as host governor, he gave a welcoming speech that roused the delegates, because it was so energetic and thoughtful.

Stevenson lost to Eisenhower that year, and it was not a surprise to many. Had the Democrats had their choice, Eisenhower would have been their nominee. However, after much thought and consideration, Ike decided in 1951 to run as a Republican. Stevenson was a good second choice for the Democrats, but not good enough to win. A little insight into Stevenson’s campaign can be gained by viewing a photograph that revealed a hole in the sole of his right shoe. This became a well-known symbol of Adlai’s frugality and earthiness. Photographer William M. Gallagher of the Flint Journal won the 1953 Pulitzer prize on the strength of the image.

1956 was essentially an “instant replay,” as the popular Eisenhower chose to run for a second term, and Stevenson was a satisfactory candidate for the Democrats. The party was rather splintered, particularly between the northern and southern factions. Stevenson campaigned well, but garnered only 42 percent of the popular vote, and 73 electoral votes from a mere seven states.

Stevenson still had the presidential bug in 1960 and sought the nomination. However, the top two contenders were John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Stevenson never really had a chance, as Kennedy garnered the nomination through excellent showings in the several primaries that existed at that time, as well as clever back room politicking at the convention. Kennedy then defeated Richard Nixon in the general election. The President then appointed Stevenson U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, where his oratory, laced with irony, shined, particularly in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Adlai Stevenson lives deep in the memory bank of many Americans. The oldest amongst us are fortunate enough to remember Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. Others go as far back as “Give ’em hell” Harry Truman, who among other things, integrated the U.S. armed services. The baby boomers remember Kennedy and Johnson. Lost in the shuffle is Stevenson, who truly was a positive force in the progressive movement, a “happy warrior” like FDR and Hubert Humphrey; not a “grumbler like Ralph Nader. In the 2012 election, Barack Obama, who like Stevenson is from Illinois, chose to wear the progressive mantle more than he did in 2008, and he exhibited much of the joie de vivre of Stevenson. It was a good time to be a progressive in the 1950s, even if we lost, because Stevenson gave us a lift. It’s certainly a good time to be a progressive now.

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