Patterico's Pontifications

12/15/2016

President Obama Happily Kicked Another Problem Down The Road

Filed under: General — Dana @ 5:46 pm



[guest post by Dana]

In the ongoing saga of the election and Russia’s involvement, the question of why President Obama didn’t respond more forcefully about the hacks when he read about them on the internet is being asked.

Tonight we are being provided this explanation:

The Obama administration didn’t respond more forcefully to Russian hacking before the presidential election because they didn’t want to appear to be interfering in the election and they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win and a potential cyber war with Russia wasn’t worth it, multiple high-level government officials told NBC News.

“They thought she was going to win, so they were willing to kick the can down the road,” said one U.S official familiar with the level of Russian hacking.

The report goes on to state that President Obama privately confronted Vladimir Putin in September, drawing a red line in cyber space and warning the Russian president to knock it off or there would be “unspecified consequences if the hacks continued.”

Unlike the president, there are those who actually think that maybe, just maybe it would have served us better if there had been a more robust response to the situation:

“I think it is a legitimate question and I think given the stakes at the national level the question deserves an answer,” said ret. Adm. James Stavridis when asked by NBC News about the level of the administration’s response. “In retrospect it certainly seems as though it was a mistake not to call the Russians sooner and respond to them in a very forceful way.”

The president didn’t defend the U.S. because in his mind, Hillary was going to win, thus ensuring that his legacy was secure. That is the kind of man he is. Because politics.

–Dana

63 Responses to “President Obama Happily Kicked Another Problem Down The Road”

  1. Good grief.

    Dana (d17a61) — 12/15/2016 @ 5:48 pm

  2. we learned so much about just how truly and squalidly porcine piggy pig clinton is (nasty woman)

    be real

    all these hackings did was provide the context that failmerica’s depraved anderon cooper propaganda sluts refuse to provide

    i think it’s neato mosquito and the cia can blow me

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 12/15/2016 @ 5:52 pm

  3. *anderson* cooper propaganda sluts i mean

    happyfeet (28a91b) — 12/15/2016 @ 5:53 pm

  4. Ah moar William arkin reporting.

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/15/2016 @ 5:55 pm

  5. Remember the gave away the internet on his watch, has Obama ever defrndrdus security prorogatives. Now Klein say comey told him otherwise, and even Kerry isn’t willing to go out on a limb

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/15/2016 @ 5:58 pm

  6. It’s the Holidays.

    And The Beast demands it be fed.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 12/15/2016 @ 6:00 pm

  7. The first breach by Russian affiliated faction occurred back in 2014, if

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/15/2016 @ 6:05 pm

  8. All wrong. He didn’t respond at all because he knew then, like he know now, that Russia had exactly nothing to do with it.

    Joel Walbert (117207) — 12/15/2016 @ 6:14 pm

  9. John F’in Kerry already disavowed this nonsense, so what else are they going to say?

    Yes, Mr Media Man, tell us more about this slam dunk intelligence from anonymous sources who aren’t authorized to say anything and couldn’t show us anything that just happens to serve your partisan advantage.

    I was good, I didn’t look at those Wikileaks you told me it was illegal for me to look at but journalists have special privileges for.

    Gabriel Hanna (14083c) — 12/15/2016 @ 6:24 pm

  10. When Sony was hacked by anonymous it was blamed on the north Koreans, who are so absorbed in corporate dynamic in Hollywood

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/15/2016 @ 6:32 pm

  11. Wait, we’re missing the Freudian admission in what Barack said.
    He said he didn’t do anything about it because he thought Hillary was going to win.
    But now they’re all saying that the Russians swung the result of the election. Well, if what the Russians “did” was so dramatic, then why wouldn’t that have been apparent to them before election day?
    (LOL)

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 12/15/2016 @ 6:51 pm

  12. But now he tells nor, he’s going to act. to paraphrase a line from independence day

    Connicks character: I’m gonna do something

    Smith’s : don’t do something stupid

    Connicks: you know me

    Smith’s: that’s what I’m afraid of

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/15/2016 @ 6:54 pm

  13. His red line is cyber space is as reliable as his red line in Syria and Putin knows that.

    Patricia (5fc097) — 12/15/2016 @ 6:56 pm

  14. As narciso tells us above, Dear Leader now promises that the U.S. will respond to this meddling “at a time and place of our own choosing.” Considering that he leaves office in like 45 days, I think those choices are pretty constricted.

    JVW (6e49ce) — 12/15/2016 @ 7:23 pm

  15. Too bad obama blew the red line business in Syria. No one believes his red lines anymore especially Put in who views obama as an effeminate pussy.

    Jim (a9b7c7) — 12/15/2016 @ 7:27 pm

  16. I don’t agree with the premise of the story being pushed by the mainstream media.

    What is it about the Podesta email hack that pushed the election from Clinton to Trump?

    Were voters so upset that Bernie got screwed that they switched their vote? Were voters so upset to learn that the media was in bed with the Democrats that they switched their votes? This idea is silly.

    AZ Bob (f7a491) — 12/15/2016 @ 9:42 pm

  17. Clearly volodya was the dues ex machina, why else would red queen losr

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/15/2016 @ 9:55 pm

  18. I think Democrats have a better case to make that the Comey letter shifted momentum — although I blame Hillary for that, not Comey.

    Patterico (115b1f) — 12/15/2016 @ 10:06 pm

  19. They thought Clinton would win… They never expected Americans would withdraw from progressive opiates and overcome the Democratic margin of fraud.

    n.n (e2c80e) — 12/15/2016 @ 10:16 pm

  20. The complaint about this whole DNC-cracking thing seems to be that the voters were exposed to information they shouldn’t have had, in other words that Clinton was entitled to an under-informed electorate, and was cheated of it when the Russians or whoever spilled the beans. Since a mistrial’s impossible she’s entitled at least to a jury instruction to ignore the illicitly-obtained evidence, if not to a directed verdict.

    This is, of course, nonsense. When a criminal conviction is overturned because the jury was tainted by true knowledge it shouldn’t have had, nobody thinks that is justice. Even the greatest fans of the exclusionary rule admit that the acquittal of guilty defendants is a bad thing, it’s just that this is unfortunately the price we have to pay to protect us all from a far worse fate, the effective loss of the fourth amendment.

    So what’s the equivalent here? To avoid giving carte blanche to all sorts of crackers, foreign and domestic, to go fishing for secret information that could sway the voters, we should hand the presidency for four and possibly eight years to someone who is manifestly undeserving and unfit?! How does that seem even close to reasonable?

    Investigate by all means. Find the weaknesses and close them. Find the crackers and punish them, if possible. But at the end of the day, a better informed electorate can be assumed to do a better job than a worse-informed one.

    As for the claim that it’s unfair because they didn’t leak the RNC’s embarrassing email too, even if we assume that they did crack the RNC, which is very much in doubt, who says there was anything embarrassing there? The Democrats are just assuming that there must be, because they truly believe that everyone behaves as they do, and they were just unlucky to be caught.

    This is something we observe over and over; Democrats are caught in wrongdoing, but are convinced that the Republicans must be doing the same thing. I recall one of the senate hearings in 1995 into the Democrats’ illegal foreign fundraising, the Democrats called Haley Barbour to testify about some money he’d raised in Hong Kong. He explained that this money had been kept carefully segregated from anything to do with elections,and his Democrat inquisitors were flabbergasted. “Oh come now”, they seemed to say, “Surely you don’t expect us to believe that. We all know how this works. Why would you not spend that money on an election campaign?”, and Barbour basically replied “Um, because it’s the law?” You could tell that the concept just wasn’t computing with the Democrats.

    Milhouse (40ca7b) — 12/16/2016 @ 12:11 am

  21. Of course in all of this there’s been no mention of Ted Kennedy’s letter to Brezhnev in 1984, asking him to help defeat Reagan in return for future favors to be determined. In 1984, when the USSR was an enemy of the USA.

    Milhouse (40ca7b) — 12/16/2016 @ 12:15 am

  22. Like everyone else, Putin believed that Hillary’s election was a foregone conclusion.Both Putin
    and Obama believed that they could control her(blackmail). What he did achieve was to sew doubt
    and dissension, further dividing the country.

    Bar Sinister (f5ce19) — 12/16/2016 @ 7:11 am

  23. 21. Milhouse (40ca7b) — 12/16/2016 @ 12:15 am

    I did read about something like that not so long ago, but I didn’t know exactly what it was,

    I found this from Forbes in 2009:

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3NFzez_RGTwJ:http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html%2Bkennedy+letter+brezhnev+1984&hl=en&gbv=2&ct=clnk

    It comes from something in the Soviet archives made available by Boris Yeltsin in 1991 (before they largely got closed again) so it wasn’t know before that. This news was published in 1992 in a London paper, but had no legs, and again in a book in 2006, but has only bit by bit become better known.

    Reading this over, it seems like Kennedy thought the Soviet Union was afraid of Reagan and was offering to keep Reagan under control, if they followed his advice.

    To condense this a bit, there was a memorandum composed in 1983 (dated May 14) by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, which was addressed to Yuri Andropov, former head of the KGB and now ruler of the USSR.

    This must have been before he got disabled. Yuri Andropov actually was the de facto ruler during the last days of Brezhnev but was himself not in charge in his on last days. I think he died in Feb 1984 and was succeeded by Chernenko. who didn’t last long.

    You could sort of say: “And Brezhnev died, and Kosygin died, and all the members of his Politburo.’ (although Kosygin was out of power as of 1977 I think)

    The subject was Sen. Edward Kennedy. It said:

    “On 9-10 May of this year, Sen. Edward Kennedy’s close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow.” (former Democratic senator from California for one term, 1970-76, and Kennedy’s law school roommate) “The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov.”

    According to this memo, Kennedy would help Andropov deal with President Reagan, and the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.

    “The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations. These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.”

    Kennedy proposed to visit Moscow.

    “The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA.”

    Kennedy, in other words, would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda.

    Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. “A direct appeal … to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. … If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. … The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side.”

    “Like other rational people,” the memorandum explained, “[Kennedy] is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations.”

    Also: “Tunney remarked that the senator wants to run for president in 1988,” the memorandum continued. “Kennedy does not discount that during the 1984 campaign, the Democratic Party may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans and elect their candidate president.”

    Now whether this is accurate, depends upon whether both Chebrikov and Tinney were being honest and precise.

    What this is saying, is that Kennedy offers to help the Soviet Union with its propagandsa, , not to defeat Reagan in 1984, but to win in 1988. It probably didn’t sound very appetizing. It would be of more advantage to Kennedy than to the Soviet Union – in fact the Soviet Union would have to moderate what it said and maybe did, and take direction from Kennedy!!

    What exactly the Soviet Union would get out of it, is not clear, unless, as perhaps Kennedy surmised, the Soviet Union was afraid of Reagan, so Kennedy was offering to keep Reagan under control. It probably didn’t sound very appealing, not to mention that Andropov soon got sick, and nothing became of it.

    Tim Sebastian published a story about the memorandum in the London Times in 1992, but it received no attention in the United States. later, in his 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, historian Paul Kengor reprinted the memorandum in full. It was still ignored but Kenger says it is genuine.

    Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 12/16/2016 @ 9:27 am

  24. Milhouse (40ca7b) — 12/16/2016 @ 12:15 am

    Ted Kennedy’s letter to Brezhnev in 1984, asking him to help defeat Reagan in return for future favors to be determined. In 1984, when the USSR was an enemy of the USA.

    No, he’s not asking them to help defeat Reagan. According to this, Tunney says Kennedy plans to run in 1988, not 1984, which means he expects Reagan to be re-elected.

    He’s asking them to let him control their nuclear arms propaganda, and maybe stymie Reagan’s military build-up. It only makes sense if there’s an assumption that the Soviet Union is geninely afraid of Ronald Reagan, and Kennedy wants to exploit their paranoia.

    If Chebrikov is reporting this conversation accurately, you have to feel that Tunney is lying at leasts somewhat and you don’t know how much of what Tunney says reflects what Kennedy may have wanted to say, or if he was realy conveying a message from Kennedy in the first place.

    Kennedy is not promising anything to the Soviet Union, except to work with them.

    Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 12/16/2016 @ 9:37 am

  25. It would be pleasing if Trump turns out to have suckered Putin here, as he has so many others.

    Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/16/2016 @ 10:16 am

  26. I think Democrats have a better case to make that the Comey letter shifted momentum

    The actual thing they need to be talking about is “why was Clinton so vulnerable?” If Trump hadn’t been close, none of this would have mattered. The Dems thought that their ideas and the promise of 4 more years of progressive politics were what the nation wanted, and they were brought low by the weakest opponent they could imagine.

    Why was it so close that any of this mattered?

    Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/16/2016 @ 10:20 am

  27. Remember, in 2012 Obama said: I’ll have more flexibility after the election.

    This is also Obama back filling. Russian attempts were well publicized. If he just kinda blows them off now, like he did, he’s going to get blamed for Hillary’s loss, even though there’s no direct and conclusive evidence this is why she lost. He has to do something. She knows where the bodies are buried, but those on the left like him much more than her.

    Steve_in_SoCal (58e1f9) — 12/16/2016 @ 11:04 am

  28. Kevin M: “If Trump hadn’t been close, none of this would have mattered”

    Exactly. Why wasn’t she like, 50 points ahead? : )

    Steve_in_SoCal (58e1f9) — 12/16/2016 @ 11:06 am

  29. I’m going to listen to President Obama’s press conference. On CBS at least.

    Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 12/16/2016 @ 11:20 am

  30. The press conference hasn’t started. I should have known it wold be delayed. Actually I did, but I thought that when CBS said their coverage would start at 2:15, that meant the press conference would start at 2:30. Now I would guess 3 pm. It’ll be on the radio, too

    Sammy Finkelman (c0fa89) — 12/16/2016 @ 11:35 am

  31. NY Post provides a summary of Obama’s failure to stand up to Russia on numerous fronts.

    I just heard Obama at the press conference say “I told Russia to stop it or face the consequences.”

    LOL

    AZ Bob (f7a491) — 12/16/2016 @ 12:21 pm

  32. Obama told Putin to “cut it ouit.”

    More LOL.

    AZ Bob (f7a491) — 12/16/2016 @ 11:21 pm

  33. Cut it out. Cut it out. Cut it out.

    Cut it out, man.

    AZ Bob (f7a491) — 12/16/2016 @ 11:22 pm

  34. That’s the ticket.

    AZ Bob (f7a491) — 12/16/2016 @ 11:23 pm

  35. #CutItOutVlad

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:27 am

  36. #I’llTellMom!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:28 am

  37. #DoubleSecretProbation!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:30 am

  38. #I’llFixYourHash

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:32 am

  39. #NoMoreCocktailParties

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:34 am

  40. #You’veDisappointedMe!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:35 am

  41. #I’llWriteSuchaLetter!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:37 am

  42. #BringOurSecretsHome

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:38 am

  43. #TrustButPacify

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:40 am

  44. #BuBuBuBuBut

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:42 am

  45. #I-I-I-I-I

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:43 am

  46. #I’dRatherBePhishing

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:51 am

  47. #TeachaManToPhish

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:52 am

  48. #TrytehPhish

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:53 am

  49. #DaysofLinesandPoses

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 4:54 am

  50. The days of lines and poses
    Strikes a haughty pose and looks down his nose
    Through a frozen land toward a closing door
    A door marked nevermore, we’ve seen this before

    That haunted look discloses
    Teh bitter taste of ash just go take teh cash
    Talk of Hopen’Change just means that we’ve been had
    The days of lines and poses and Vlad

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/17/2016 @ 5:10 am

  51. Putin says he didn’t do it.

    #itwasntme.

    papertiger (c8116c) — 12/17/2016 @ 5:44 am

  52. “I didn’t do it.” The Vladimir Putin Story.

    papertiger (c8116c) — 12/17/2016 @ 5:49 am

  53. dit dit dit dit dit dash dit dit dit

    THIS JUST IN …. · Russian hackers tried — and failed — to hack into the Republican National Committee’s computer system using the same methods they allegedly used to hack into the Democratic National Committee’s computer system.
    Fortunately John Podesta wasn’t on hand to change the pass codes on RNC computer systems.

    http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/12/16/report-russian-hackers-tried-and-failed-to-breach-rnc-systems/

    papertiger (c8116c) — 12/17/2016 @ 6:22 am

  54. They fell for the landshark, it wasnt a special hack like something out of swordfish.

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/17/2016 @ 6:52 am

  55. No, it was a dolphin. That’s the story they told John.

    papertiger (c8116c) — 12/17/2016 @ 7:22 am

  56. And the RNC was like, “I don’t believe you’re a dolphin. You’re that clever shark.”

    papertiger (c8116c) — 12/17/2016 @ 7:24 am

  57. It really has acme products written all over it.

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/17/2016 @ 7:26 am

  58. So mulvaney at omb and Friedman in jerusalem

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/17/2016 @ 7:34 am

  59. Bow it took emptywheel among others, to point this just brennan’s assurance not an actual statement from comey

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/17/2016 @ 7:47 am

  60. this is like so failmerica it’s not even funny

    nk (dbc370) — 12/17/2016 @ 8:18 am

  61. So the podesta emails leaked in October, butobana told putin to cut it out in September?

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/17/2016 @ 8:38 am

  62. I sense a fair amount of cynicism on this thread.

    elissa (da4c50) — 12/17/2016 @ 8:52 am

  63. Just a tad elissa, but newsreaders and rizzotto tray carriers, read it dead pan, like the lines in airplane.

    narciso (d1f714) — 12/17/2016 @ 9:39 am


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