President Trump’s speech in Phoenix brought out the usual cast of misfits and miscreants.
And no, I’m not just referring to the “Antifa” anarchists who were, for the most part, denied their typical practice of wielding clubs, hurling feces, throwing rocks, setting vehicles ablaze and destroying buildings.
I’m talking about chronic Trump critics like James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence.  Spouting off on CNN immediately after the speech, Clapper said he questioned the president’s “fitness to be in this office."
Lying to Congress is a felony. Yet Clapper managed to avoid prosecution for criminal perjury by hiding behind President Obama. So, when Clapper decries the “complete intellectual, moral or ethical void” of President Trump, the irony is lost on no one.
Clapper seems to be making a career out of trashing Trump.  He’s like a guy who can’t resist cramming a cannoli in his mouth every time he passes a pastry shop.  Whenever Trump speaks, Clapper starts yapping.  It is no coincidence that his mouth, and the lie that came out of it back in 2013, is what should have landed him behind bars.
While testifying before Congress, Clapper was asked, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”   The DNI responded, “No.”
It was a breathtaking lie, of course.  Soon thereafter, the story broke that the National Security Agency had, indeed, been doing exactly what Clapper denied under oath.  When confronted with his lie, he told a reporter, “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or at least untruthful manner by saying ‘no.’”   Huh?
Later, Clapper apologized for his “clearly erroneous” answer, but explained he had simply forgotten all about the massive government operation to secretly collect metadata on hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens.  That’s like saying Christmas slipped his mind.
Lying to Congress is a felony.  Yet Clapper managed to avoid prosecution for criminal perjury by hiding behind President Obama. Obama’s pal, Attorney General Eric Holder, made sure the case was tossed in a broom closet somewhere, never to be seen again.
The pompous media has never understood why much of America does not embrace their liberal values. Most members of the press are too insular and dogmatic to ever conceive of any intelligent beliefs beyond their own.
So, when Clapper decries the “complete intellectual, moral or ethical void” of President Trump, the irony is lost on no one.  Clapper became the poster child for ethical decay when he served as the nation’s chief intelligence officer.
At roughly the same time Clapper was spewing his usual drivel, Hillary Clinton was attempting to sideswipe Trump with her own revisionist rubbish.
Clinton, who mangled her presidential aspirations with acts of self-immolation unmatched in modern political history, is at it again.  Old habits are hard to break.  You’ll recall that she famously blamed her husband’s infidelity with a young intern on a “vast right-wing conspiracy” two decades ago.  She has been playing the narcissistic “blame game” ever since.
Her latest incantation is really quite laughable.  In a breathless recitation of excerpts from her new book “What Happened,” Clinton bemoans that the mere sight of Donald Trump during the campaign made her skin crawl.  It is the tripe of dime novels, but no less hypocritical.
Wouldn’t Hillary want to crawl out of her own skin because of her self-destruction? Wouldn't she blame herself for the utterly unnecessary, but fatal, scandal of her own making? When she looks in the mirror, does she see a crook staring back? How could she not?
Like Clapper’s lies, Clinton managed to escape prosecution and prison for what appears to be a clear violation of the Espionage Act in the mishandling of classified documents.  Once again, Obama’s Justice Department provided cover, with a significant assist from then-FBI Director James Comey.
Perhaps Clinton’s most revealing line in her book is when she recounts her "lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off.”  While it is intended to be a swipe at Trump, it sounds more like an angry confession of living a tortured life in the company of Bill Clinton.
There will be more self-serving excerpts to come.  Lucky us.
But Hillary Clinton and James Clapper are like pesky flies compared to the mainstream media.  Driven by its pronounced liberal bias, they immediately condemned Trump for denouncing them at the rally.  The president knows he can provoke them into revealing their prejudices.  And when he did so during the speech, they reacted like Pavlov’s dogs.
The gnashing of teeth at CNN was predictable, if not comical.  Calling the president “unhinged” and “wounded,” anchor Don Lemon declared that Trump “came out on stage and lied directly to the American people.  His speech was without thought, without reason, devoid of facts, devoid of wisdom.”  Lemon blathered on and on, but you get the picture.  He seemed to light up like a pinball machine when his guest, Clapper, launched into his “unfit for office” shtick.  Is it any wonder that the convention hall crowd began chanting, “CNN sucks?”
The pompous media has never understood why much of America does not embrace their liberal values.  Most members of the press are too insular and dogmatic to ever conceive of any intelligent beliefs beyond their own.
Which is why journalists never imagined that Trump would be elected president.  When it happened, they lapsed into something akin to “septic shock” from which they have yet to recover.  Likely, they never will.  They will persist in predicting Trump’s imminent demise and assert their own intellectual and moral superiority.
In so doing, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.  Not as a professional endeavor.  There will always be journalists.
But America will no longer hold them in respectable regard.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and former defense attorney.