Early this morning, Leigh Sales was moved to publicly thank viewers for their reaction to an interview conducted with best-selling US author James Comey. The 7.30 presenter did not describe the majority nature of responses to last night’s broadcast, but, instead, their volume — “huge amounts”. Still, it’s safe for us to suppose that this grateful Sales was not beset, as she so often is, with assessment of her wardrobe. We might suppose she was thankful for huge thanks.

At the time of writing, few appraisals of the Sales performance have been published. But an early sign that the praise of the many may continue by media comes from News Corp, which chose simply to recount the interview, reserve all the poop generally spent on the ABC — “cultural Marxist”, “elite”, “unnatural soldiers in the war against gender” etc. — and even used the verb “grill” to describe the Sales technique. Almost a compliment.

Australians. We do tend to unite for any local success abroad.

I guess the thing was a success. Certainly, Sales did not embarrass herself, i.e. did not pull a Ferguson and wash the feet of our newest prophet-from-the-hegemon with her perfumed hair. But, to find true success with Comey is difficult for any journalist.

This is, in no small part, due to Comey’s FBI training. A dirty organisation defined by Hoover demands its clean-looking leaders. The illegal wiretaps of the 1950s became the warrantless privacy invasions, approved by Comey, of the Obama era. J Edgar’s private files on DC figures, and these include the “Sex Deviates” program of instrumentalised homophobia, became the Steele Dossier Comey described to Trump.

But, gee, Comey came across like a true patriot when describing his file full of piss. As Comey recounted to Sales the conversation he had with Trump about the dossier, he managed to (almost) appear terribly upright and to (almost) conceal his great contempt for the President. He wasn’t pulling a Hoover, you see, and threatening a political figure with exposure. No. He was doing the responsible thing and he even told the President that he didn’t care what was in those files.

Oh, sure. This bloke who wrote his dissertation on the importance of Christian morals in political life didn’t care about wee. Sure, this guy who has previously donated to the campaigns of Romney and McCain is above politics — he repeated this often, and the claim went more or less unchallenged. Really, Leigh. Hoover once appeared to the American people like a straight-shooting public servant with no allegiance but to freedom, impartiality and justice, too.

Perhaps when one is conducting an interview with a blockbuster author, there is no little coercion by publicists to address the contents of that author’s book. But, there was nothing, really, to stop Sales truly “grilling” Comey beyond the limits of what he had set down in print, and what most media outlets like to believe. That is: institutions like the FBI will survive the brutal authoritarianism of Trump. As though such institutions do not have long, documented histories themselves of brutal authoritarianism.

Sales questioned only the integrity of Comey — one of the world’s leading mimics of decency — and not of the FBI. Sales did not ask Comey if the Steele dossier was trustworthy — they just both went on as though it were and as if Comey had not previously been reported to doubt its authenticity. As for the Russia stuff. Again, here — and even despite Comey’s, perhaps inadvertent, statement that no evidence linking Trump to the Kremlin had been found after more than a year of investigation — the involvement of “Russians” in, well, just about everything rotten was taken as red.

There’s a lot more to this Comey fellow than his book. I’ve only skimmed it, but it appears to me a rather prideful document in which the former director compares his own grace and good taste with the vulgarity of Trump, which, of course, is why it will sell. Who doesn’t love a bit of classism disguised as nobility? (Well, people who voted for Trump, I guess.)

And, gee, there’s a lot more to this era in US politics, described by Sales last night as “historic”, than Russia, pee, “hacking”, the careers of powerful technocrats etc. Comey was “grilled” more lightly than the tuna in Clinton’s salade nicoise. Just the latest “explanation” for a political result mediocre journalists refuse to assess in political terms.

When Hillary herself arrives here next month to deliver her “inspirational” pap about caring for children and bombing Libyans, we can expect a replay of this reflex borrowed from US media. Sales is hardly alone in failing to see the forest for all those Why Hillary Lost books made by its individual trees.