Listening to James Clapper, erstwhile Director of National Intelligence, defend his actions during the 2016 presidential campaign can make you squirm with embarrassment, even if you start by supposing he’s telling the truth.

Asked why he didn’t advise the Trump campaign about the threat of Russian infiltration of his campaign that was being investigated by the intel agencies, Clapper averred that it wasn’t his place to do that, that he was reporting to the policymakers.

One may wonder what good is a Director of National Intelligence who doesn’t do something positive in such a situation, like urge the policymakers to inform the Trump campaign if he wasn’t going to do it himself.

Actually, that’s “policymaker,” singular, since Clapper reported directly to the president. Why didn’t Clapper advise the president that the Trump campaign should know about possible Russian infiltration of his staff?

Well, that would have involved actually doing something, taking action, making things happen, staking out a position and pushing it. And that sort of thing is entirely foreign to James Clapper’s character.

Clapper is, and always has been, a professional toady. His act has never been to do anything decisive but rather to look wise, waffle sagaciously and pretend to be informed. To alert Trump to what was going on would have run against the current of Clapper's Deep State DNA.

A contemptuous shell of a man? Sure. A total waste of taxpayer money for his salary? Certainly. So what? He had his prestige, his sinecure and his fat pension and who are you, anyway?

Clapper and his Deep State should fill you with disgust. He embodies the characterless, soulless, Gollum-type ego that buries itself in the bowels of its host and, like a termite in a log, steadily rots it from within.

Clapper or Brennan, Comey or Mueller, McCabe or Strzok, on and on, their names are legion.

Photo credit: Jay Godwin, Wikimedia Commons