Suddenly, because Hillary Clinton lost the presidency, Russian hacking has become a very big deal. It's quite the international incident that Democratic party emails were hacked, what with Russian diplomats being booted out of the country by President Obama. (And, it must be noted, to get President Obama to actually act on anything other than showing up for his tee time is a very big deal, indeed.)
Russia has been messing with us for at least fifty years, and nobody has showed much interest in holding them accountable. But this election, why, Hillary lost! This was the last straw. And what effect did Russian hacking really have on the results of the election? None that anyone can prove, as even the White House has admitted. Electoral votes in decisive states simply followed Trump in droves.
Regardless of Russia's meddling--which is unquestionably bad and unacceptable--some facts of the election season remain unassailably true.
- John Podesta, to borrow a phrase from President Obama,"acted stupidly" when he clicked on a phishing link that compromised his email account. Blame a bad decision, perhaps?
- Podesta also wrote some quite compromising emails. Can't blame that on the Russians.
- Hillary Clinton did not value or visit Rust Belt states nearly enough during the campaign. Trump did, and his message was clear. That's not Russia's doing, either.
- Clinton also screwed up with her home-brew server. I'm sure not only Russia, but China, Iran, and North Korea have all had a good eyeful of her emails.
