Whenever it came to anything that he knew he shouldn\u2019t have done, the comedian Flip Wilson used to say: \u201cThe Devil made me do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the Democrats, it is the Russians who made us do it.<\/p>\n
More exactly, it is the Russians who made the Democrats lose on November 8.<\/p>\n
For a variety of reasons, it is particularly odd that the left, of all people, would take to peddling this notion that Donald J. Trump won, or was helped to win, by Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.\u00a0 In short, far from serving as an indictment of Trump, this narrative reflects poorly on the Democrats<\/em>.<\/p>\n First, if<\/em> the Russians hacked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton\u2019s emails, as the Democrats swear, it is because they were able to do so<\/em>.\u00a0 By now, everyone knows that Clinton\u2014again, while Secretary of State\u2014dispatched tens of thousands of emails, including and especially some that had been marked \u201cclassified,\u201d over an unsecured, private server.<\/p>\n Clinton compromised the security of every American man, woman, and child.\u00a0 As FBI Director James Comey confirmed<\/a>, Barack Obama\u2019s State Department was \u201cextremely careless\u201d through its handling of \u201cvery sensitive, highly classified information.\u201d\u00a0 In telling the world that a hostile foreign power actually succeeded<\/em> in accessing this material, the Dems underscore<\/em> just how vulnerable they rendered the country.<\/p>\n Second, if<\/em> the Russians hacked Clinton\u2019s emails\u2014her thousands <\/em>and thousands <\/em>of emails\u2014then this would, presumably, create an interest on their part to see to it that she <\/em>was elected.\u00a0 No pun intended, but Clinton\u2019s tsunami of emails would give a whole new meaning to blackmail. Vladimir Putin would be in the proverbial driver\u2019s seat, hanging Clinton\u2019s emails over her head at every turn.<\/p>\n Third, if <\/em>there is evidence of Russian tinkering with the election, this in itself would not establish that the hackers were interested in securing Trump\u2019s<\/em> election.\u00a0 Given that the hacked information came from the Democrats, this alone would make it eminently more plausible to suspect that the Russians would interfere in order to secure a Clinton victory, for it is the Democrats whose secrets the Russians (or anyone else) could release.<\/p>\n Fourth, if <\/em>the Russians interfered with the election, then while they would have an interest invested in seeing Clinton elected, they would indeed also have an interest invested in seeing Trump elected. \u00a0The reason for this is obvious:<\/p>\n The Russians no more want war with the United States than (most) Americans want war with them.\u00a0 Trump is among a few voices on the contemporary American political scene who has repeatedly expressed a desire for peaceful relations with Russia.\u00a0 A third term of Obama via Hillary Clinton promised to exacerbate tensions between the nuclear giants of America and Russia.<\/p>\n A Trump presidency, in glaring contrast, portends peace.<\/p>\n The Russia-Made-Us-Do-It narrative, even considered on its own terms, makes the Democrats look worse, not better.<\/p>\n What\u2019s worse of all, however, is that there is no evidence at all to support this tale.<\/p>\n Glenn Greenwald<\/a> just may be the last of the true investigative journalists.\u00a0 Though he is a left-leaning writer whose work has been regularly featured in The Guardian <\/em>and Salon, <\/em>Greenwald is a genuinely principled journalist whose commitment to exposing corruption in government transcends whatever ideological prejudices he may hold.<\/p>\n The latest instance of corruption on which Greenwald has set his sights is what he himself refers to as the \u201cMcCarthyite\u201d conduct of the Democrats.\u00a0 On Friday December 9, the Washington Post <\/em>announced that the CIA confirmed that the Russians intervened in America\u2019s latest election in order to hand Trump a victory.<\/p>\n Well, actually, WaPo <\/em>revealed that anonymous sources<\/em> confirmed that the CIA confirmed this. To be more specific, anonymous sources confirmed that the CIA confirmed in an informal, secret<\/em> session, that Russia intervened in America\u2019s election so as to hand it to Trump.<\/p>\n