{"id":1595,"date":"2017-01-02T14:21:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T19:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1595"},"modified":"2017-01-02T14:21:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T19:21:39","slug":"politics-cheap-russians-hijacked-election-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/01\/politics-cheap-russians-hijacked-election-part.html","title":{"rendered":"Politics on the Cheap: The Russians Hijacked the Election Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regarding the Russians-Made-Us-Do-It<\/a> narrative that the Democrats and their propagandists in the media are busy pushing, some sober thought is much needed.<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, that the world\u2019s sovereign states regularly attempt to interfere with the internal politics of other sovereign states, including their allies<\/a>, is an open secret among those in the know.\u00a0 The United States is no exception<\/a> to this rule. And given America\u2019s eminent role as a geopolitical power, everyone has an interest invested in its politics, particularly and especially its national presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, this being said, the proposition that the Russian government has made attempts (whatever this means) to intervene in our affairs is not implausible. However, it is no more plausible than the proposition that any other country<\/em> attempted to do the same. In fact, given the wild unpopularity of Obama<\/a> among Israelis, as well as the justified belief on their part that a vote for Hillary Clinton would be a vote for more of the same, it is more <\/em>plausible that the Israelis would\u2019ve pulled out all of the stops to insure her defeat.<\/p>\n

Given the ever-growing perception that Obama and his fellow partisans are \u201canti-Israel,\u201d<\/a> however, the allegation that the Israelis hacked our election, though as baseless as that now being made against \u201cthe Russians,\u201d is not politically palatable.<\/p>\n

When Russia was ruled by brutal communist dictators, the left couldn\u2019t love it enough. Now, though, in a post-Soviet age when its internationalism has given way to nationalism and Russia is presided over instead by a tough, politically incorrect white man, leftists, like Obama, sound the war drums.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t much political fallout for a contemporary American politician to fear in talking tough about Putin and Russians.<\/p>\n

Third<\/strong>, the Regime (or the Government-Media-Complex) rely upon language\u2014words like \u201cinterfere,\u201d \u201chacking,\u201d \u201cintelligence agencies,\u201d and, most typically, \u201cthe Russians<\/em>\u201d\u2014that, by design, is sorely lacking in precision.\u00a0 The merchants of the narrative count upon the public conflating these terms and drawing inferences that haven\u2019t even come close to being substantiated.<\/p>\n

For example, \u201cinterfere\u201d is so broad as to mean virtually anything that the user of the term wants for it to mean.\u00a0 Is a foreign head of state who speaks critically of another head of state or prospective head of state, particularly during a time at which the latter is up for election, say, guilty of \u201cinterfering\u201d in the affairs of another country?\u00a0 At the very least, \u201cinterference\u201d is far from synonymous with \u201chacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for our \u201cintelligence agencies,\u201d they constitute a multifaceted tapestry of vastly intricate bureaucratic organizations that are as divided internally as they are with respect to one another. When it is stated that \u201cour intelligence agencies\u201d have concluded one thing or another, the implication is that there is some unanimity of judgment on the subject at hand.\u00a0 Yet there is anything but a consensus amongst those in the intelligence \u201ccommunity\u201d as to what, if any, <\/em>role \u201cthe Russians\u201d played in the presidential election of 2016.<\/p>\n

This is another specimen of slippery language, for while \u201cthe Russians\u201d are meant to implicate Putin and his government, there is no necessary connection between the two.<\/p>\n

Fourth, <\/strong>investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald\u2014a gay man who has written for The Guardian <\/em>and who is no <\/em>admirer of Republicans generally and Trump specifically\u2014has blasted away at the Democrat Party and its proxies in Big Media for cooking the case against Russia<\/a>. Greenwald notes, for starters, that even those \u201canonymous\u201d intelligence officials who allegedly remarked in a \u201csecret assessment\u201d that \u201cRussia\u201d hacked DNC emails also admitted that it had absolutely zero evidence to link any of this with the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

In other words, there is as much available evidence that Putin had anything to do with hacking DNC emails as there is evidence that Superman or Mickey Mouse were the culprits.<\/p>\n

Moreover, even according to Democrat-friendly media, publications like the Washington Post, <\/em>there is little evidence to defend pointing the finger at any Russians.\u00a0 \u201cAnonymous\u201d sources and \u201csecret assessments\u201d are no grounds for doing so.\u00a0 And even within this \u201csecret assessment,\u201d the Post <\/em>was forced to (eventually) concede, there were \u201cminor disagreements\u201d between CIA members.<\/p>\n

Tellingly, as to what these disagreements were, the Post <\/em>coverage refuses to divulge.<\/p>\n

While some anonymous CIA officials allegedly think that Russia hacked and arranged for Julian Asange to leak DNC emails so as to insure a Trump victory, the FBI has maintained<\/a> that this position remains wholly unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n

Fifth, <\/strong>if the Putin government had hacked away at the DNC email, wouldn\u2019t a man who is supposed to be as big of a thug as everyone says Putin is want to exploit all of that information to blackmail Hillary Clinton and her party?\u00a0 It would have made eminently good sense for a master conniver like Putin to help Clinton win <\/em>so that he could exert control over the American presidency for the next four or eight years.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if, as Democrats like Obama assure us<\/a>, the hacked emails were \u201cboring,\u201d then why would a heavy-hitter like Putin even waste his time with them? If they were so unremarkable, then how did they manage to undermine trust in the Democrats and tilt the election in favor of Trump?<\/p>\n

The Democrats can\u2019t have it both ways here: If the DNC\/Hillary emails were dull, then there would\u2019ve been no point for the Russians, or anyone else, to have hacked them, for no one is going to care about dull emails.\u00a0 If, though, the Russians or anyone else went through the trouble of hacking and releasing these emails with an eye toward catapulting to victory a candidate who was the Underdog of all underdogs, and if this strategy worked, <\/em>then the content of those emails must have been anything but \u201cboring.\u201d<\/p>\n

As per usual, the Dems are trying to square a circle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regarding the Russians-Made-Us-Do-It narrative that the Democrats and their propagandists in the media are busy pushing, some sober thought is much needed. First, that the world\u2019s sovereign states regularly attempt to interfere with the internal politics of other sovereign states, including their allies, is an open secret among those in the know.\u00a0 The United States…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPolitics on the Cheap: The Russians Hijacked the Election Part I<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/01\/politics-cheap-russians-hijacked-election-part.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Politics on the Cheap: The Russians Hijacked the Election Part I\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Regarding the Russians-Made-Us-Do-It narrative that the Democrats and their propagandists in the media are busy pushing, some sober thought is much needed. 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