We have recently gone through the big kafuffle over Trump and Putin. The biggest laugh lines were when the critics attacked the president. Because he showed disrespect for our intelligence agencies. He, and we, are supposed to genuflect before these holy institutions.

Sorry, but my knees won’t allow me to genuflect, curtsy, or kneel. Nor will my head. In fact, my head suggests we change the word “intelligence” to “stuff.” These agencies do gather intelligence — along with tons of garbage. And too often, they cannot tell the difference. Central Stuff Agency would be more accurate.

Consider this: Our vaunted intelligence agencies failed to warn us of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. Utterly failed. There were many attackers, many financiers, and many enablers. They all dropped clues by the dozens. They phoned each other, they entered flight schools, and they laid plans to commandeer three huge planes.

Our “intelligence” guys discovered clues. They intercepted messages. Some figured out some things were amiss. But their bosses ignored them or smothered them. Brilliant. Nobody came close to putting the pieces together. Their failure led to disaster. That disaster led to a few wars. Only a few.

George W. Bush and Tony Blair did not sit up in their beds one night and decide to invade Iraq. They burped up this war after gorging on “intelligence” from the finest intel agencies on earth.

Consider this: Our mighty “stuff” agencies determined for sure that Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction. They connected with mighty “stuff” agencies from our allies. All of them assured our president and the UK’s prime minister that Iraq was chock-full-of WMDs. Right.

Consider: Thousands of our intelligence guys studied the USSR during the Cold War. They planted spies, infiltrated, tapped, and eavesdropped. They interrogated escapees. They produced mountains of “intelligence” on the Evil Empire. 

Ah, but they missed a few tiny items. One such item was the collapse of the USSR. Our “intelligence” agencies never saw it coming. And they never even knew that the USSR population was a lie. The USSR told the world it had up to 30 million more people than it did. A small item. Pretty hard for our magnificent intel agencies to miss 30 million people. But they did. 

Consider this: The head of one of our vaunted agencies, the FBI, lied to Congress. James Comey also leaked FBI information to the press. 

The former heads of two other intel agencies lied to Congress. Under oath. And one of them (possibly both) clearly leaked information to the press. Hey! These are not the minions. These are the big boys. The guys we are supposed to genuflect to.

Consider: Our former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to run a home-brew email system while in office. She sent thousands of State Department emails over a system as secure as your nearest coffee klatch and communicated with then-President Obama on this primitive system. And yet our “intelligence” agencies miss this? 

We only now learn virtually all her messages were automatically routed to a foreign power. And our “intelligence” agencies miss this? Meanwhile, many thousands of State Department emails were routed to her assistant’s home computer? Shared by a pervert husband who sent photos of his jockey shorts to teenage girls? And our “intelligence” agencies miss this? Until many months afterward? 

Consider this: Extra-marital affairs are the gasoline for the bonfires of blackmail. It’s Blackmail 101. So who does the FBI appoint to run the important Hillary email investigation? Who does the FBI nominate to the Trump-collusion investigation? Two lovers. Married nitwit lovers. They exchange thousands of incriminating emails. And the FBI does not detect this? Or does nothing about it? These lovebirds are really senior FBI people. 

Consider: You have to be blind if you cannot see by now that senior people in our intelligence agencies tried to skew the election. You gotta be blind to not see that they tried to undo that election after it did not go their way.

Please consider all of the above. Consider it the next time you hear a bobbing head or politician slam the president for not pledging his full support to our intelligence agencies.

The “stuff” agencies is a good term for them. And I can think of many more terms that would be more appropriate for them. The next time officials from the agencies appear before Congress they should pipe in chase music from the old Keystone Cops movies.

Intelligence agencies my tush.

From Tom…as in Morgan.                   

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home in upstate New York. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com. You can read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com

Back in 1883, Teddy Roosevelt wrote in essay on what it takes to be a true American citizen. He did not mince words. “The people who say that they have not time to attend to politics are simply saying that they are unfit to live in a free community,” he wrote. “The first duty of an American citizen, then, is that he shall work in politics.”

 His essay has been on my mind lately, because his sentiment — that living in a representative democracy demands work from all of us — is as timely now as it was then.

 The first step to getting involved is easy: look around your community and ask yourself what needs fixing or what can be done better. This is how a lot of people get started: they see an issue they want to do something about.

 Of course, your chances of effecting change grow as you learn. You have to inform yourself: listen carefully as you talk to your neighbors and friends, and pay attention to what politicians, commentators, and those involved with the issue say.

 The same, really, goes for voting. Our system depends on citizens making discriminating choices on politicians and issues. So you want to educate yourself, which includes talking with people whose opinions differ from yours.

 When it comes time to act, you want to join with a like-minded group of believers. There’s an old saying that if you want to go fast you go alone, if you want to go far you join together. That’s very true in politics.

 Next, you have to communicate — with each other, with the media, and with your representatives. You have to go to public meetings and speak up. Focus your message so it’s clear, concise, and specific. Be polite but persistent.

 Finally, run for office yourself. If you are so inclined, get a circle of friends to support you. Start locally. Develop the issues you’re interested in, pick the office that will help you affect them, build support, focus your message, and raise money.

 All of these are ways of participating — and if you want more, search out The New York Times’ guide, “How to Participate in Politics.” The key thing, as President Barack Obama said, is to show up. There are all kinds of ways to have an impact, but they start with one thing: Showing up. It’s the least we should do.                         

Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years, representing a district in south central Indiana.