So anyone catch Peter Strzok’s “Impressions of Colonel Jessup” performance yesterday? Who needs Jack Nicholson?

Sure, we didn’t hear “You can’t HANDLE the truth!” More like, “I can’t tell you the truth because FBI lawyers won’t let me and if I did it’d blow this whole Trump/Russia collusion business completely out of the water.” However, Strzok did have all the smug, self-righteous, venom and vein-popping fury Nicholson wielded in A Few Good Men. At one point, as Strzok chewed on the scenery, Democrats at the hearing actually applauded.

My wife, the brilliant actress, director and performance coach, just shook her head. “He’s acting.”

B.S. on the Bias

Strzok spent hours on the stand insisting he did not exhibit any bias in his investigations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. When the DOJ Inspector General’s report came out, I noted a couple dozen examples of investigative decisions made by Strzok and his platoon. Taken separately, each decision could be seen as within bounds. However, amazingly, each decision went in Hillary’s favor or against Trump. It’d be like flipping a coin — Heads for Hillary, Tails for Trump — and having the coin land 25 straight times for Hillary. The odds of that are about 1-in-33 million.

Let’s look at it another way. Strzok is telling you he served his country for 26 years, worked 18-hour days to protect this country. Russia posed a threat to this country. Donald Trump was a threat to this country. A disaster in the making for this country. Yet he did absolutely, positively nothing with his power to try and stop that threat.  (Despite promises to his panicked partner in crime/adultery Lisa Page that they would “stop it.” More on that in a minute.)

You know it’s bias. I know it’s bias. Jack Nicholson, if you asked him, could spot it as bias.

But for fun, let’s give Strzok the benefit of delusion.

So If It Wasn’t Bias, What Was It?

Let’s say the gravitational pull of all those decision toward clearing Hillary was not due to political bias or “personal opinion.” He did not act because he supported Hillary and detested Trump. What’s left? Strzok is no dummy. But you don’t rise at FBI headquarters because you’re the best and brightest. The bureau is loaded coast-to-coast with best and brightest. You rise in the elevator because you know what buttons to push.

Here’s your situation. You and your small team are handed the Hillary email investigation. You know two things: First, she’s guilty as all get out. Two, hell will freeze over before Attorney General Loretta Lynch will prosecute Hillary Clinton. Come April of 2016, you learn a third thing. President Obama is telling the world — telling you — that Hillary had no “intent” to harm national security and that security classification is mostly nonsense. So you know what the top dog wants.

And you know one other thing — and your girlfriend is quick to remind you — Hillary Clinton is going to win. She’s going to remember who helped put her in the White House and who tried to put her in the Big House.

Oh, what to do? What shall you ever do?

Okay, Mr. Strzok. You didn’t throw the investigation out of personal bias. You threw it out of professional survival. Pushing hard on Hillary was a great way to end up pushing papers at some outpost in bureaucratic Siberia. Or given that it’s Hillary Clinton we’re talking about, maybe buried under some outpost in the real Siberia.

Then Comes Trump: “We’ll Stop It”

So, if it wasn’t bias that had you jumping into dubious counter-intelligence actions against candidate Trump, what was it? Patriotism. In A Few Good Men, did Col. Jessup have a personal dislike of Private Santiago? A bias? No. He ordered the “Code Red” that led to Santiago’s accidental death because that was how he could best protect the country. He did his duty. Strzok could strut like a peacock all day yesterday because he believes he did his duty in going after Trump. (And make no mistake. He went after Trump. Not Russians.)

But here is the difference. Peter Strzok in his texts and in his manner at yesterday’s hearing made it absolutely clear he despises, detests most of the people he’s charged to protect.

We heard the texts. He could “SMELL” the Trump supporters at a WalMart in southern Virginia. They are “f-ing” this and “f-ing” that. “Illiterate hillbillies” On and on. That’s bad enough.

But Strzok made it worse yesterday. He didn’t come in and sheepishly say, “Yes. I wrote all that. I’m sorry. I know everyone was talking smack during the campaign. But please forgive me for talking like an a**.” No, this guy sat there for 10 hours, insisting with his snarky grin that what his texts mean in plain English aren’t what they mean.

The “SMELL” insult wasn’t about contempt. No, congressman. That’s just a mere musing on the political differences between northern and southern Virginia. “Illiterate hillbillies”? Aw, congressman, that’s just that ol’ rivalry between Loudon and Fairfax Counties (which nobody else has ever heard about.)

“We’ll Stop It.”  Of course “We” doesn’t mean me, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe and the rest at DOJ/FBI and White House involved in the “plan” and “insurance policy” against Trump’s election. You know, all those who had already been working months to “Stop” Trump. Who’d think that? Nope. I meant “We the People” of the United States of America!

Oh, and that text I just spent a minute explaining in detail? My (obviously still simmering) anger at Trump for insulting a Gold Star father? I don’t remember writing it.

Peter Strzok still thinks the American people are stinking idiots. He thinks we are fooled. He is mistaken.

Al Perrotta is Managing Editor of The Stream, and co-author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him on Twitter @StreamingAl.