To get the story out, some House Democrats decided to bring Mueller himself before the cameras. Once Americans heard the report’s conclusions in his own words, how could they not get ready to impeach? The most riveting bits would be all over Twitter and Facebook and the evening news. What could go wrong?

Zzzzzzzz.

The result was the political equivalent of a movie that makes you want to avoid reading the book. Either through all-purpose weariness or determination not to be pushed, Mueller was pretty consistently … unexciting.

“We decided we would not make a determination as to whether the president committed a crime,” he said, um, determinedly.

The Trump forces seemed to feel the day was a big triumph for their side, which was true only if you’d be encouraged by the news that the world doesn’t think you’re any more wretched today than it did yesterday.

Even the 97 percent of Americans who don’t claim to have read the report know that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election, and Trump did everything but jump up and lead a cheer with pom-poms when WikiLeaks dumped a ton of hacked Clinton emails on the nation.

The president’s defense was somewhere between outrageous and pathetic. He refused to talk with Mueller, even though — as Representative Eric Swalwell noted — during the time he was rejecting those invitations, he met with Vladimir Putin six times.

The Russian connection more than disturbed Mueller, even though he tried to avoid saying anything news-making about it. The closest he came was when someone mentioned Trump’s WikiLeaks euphoria. “Problematic is an understatement,” he said, in what was the equivalent of a howl of fury.