Almost lost in the historic public routing of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is the performance of James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence.
In a stunning piece of testimony before Congress last week -- and right in the middle of the new board game "Will Mubarak Stay or Will Mubarak Go?" -- Mr. Clapper offered a mind-boggling tutorial on just what is the Muslim Brotherhood.
He called the radical Islamist group that has spawned such garden clubs as al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas "a very heterogeneous group" that's "largely secular" and "has eschewed violence."
Clapper was forced into an ex post facto me-screwed-up mea culpa , but the damage was done.
Again.
This is the same DNI boss who, in a December interview, amazingly appeared to be totally unaware of the breakup of a major terrorist plot in England that very week.
Does the "I" in DNI stand for "ignorance"?
Clapper wasn't the only Obama administration official forced to bite his tongue last week. CIA Director Leon Panetta, in Thursday testimony before the same House Intelligence Committee, said there was a "strong likelihood" that Mr. Mubarak would be gone by day's end. That speculation wasn't based on any intelligence but on media speculation.
Jim Clapper is damaged goods. And the administration would be wise to use the ejection seat on the retired Air Force lieutenant general.
