Did Putin favor Trump?

I can’t be the only one who has noticed that this whole Russia thing makes absolutely no sense.  Why is nobody in the media or even in political office asking some basic questions about the alleged “hacking” by the Russians? 

I don’t doubt the Russian ability to hack into e-mails and I don’t doubt they would use information to their advantage if they thought they could.  But there is the problem… I don’t see how the Trump victory is to the advantage of Putin.  We as Americans are being asked to believe this premise and I don’t buy it.

Putin is the epitome of a Machiavellian ruler.  His mastery of realpolitik is unrivaled.  He is without a moral code and operates completely in the world of the practical.  The man will use any advantage to improve the situation for Russia.  None of this is disputed.  It is why he is rightly feared by so many. 

With this being the case, let’s look at why he would want either Trump or Clinton as the leader of his biggest international rival:

Trump:  The only advantage for Putin is Trump's inexperience, but even that is of dubious value.  Yes, he is inexperienced with politics but that also makes him extremely unpredictable.  That lack of predictability makes him a frightening leader from the Russian perspective.  How will Trump respond to Russian aggression in the Ukraine?  How about the Baltics or Syria?  It is all a bit of a mystery.  Everybody has opinions and guesses but there is no track record upon which to base a decision. 

One could argue that Trump has business connections with the Russians that gives them an idea of what to expect but that is a weak predictor.  Clearly Trump’s business acumen was used to promote Trump’s businesses but how does that translate into how he would run the country?  In the case of Russia, it doesn’t mean a lot.  The only thing it means is that Trump enters office with at least a modicum of understanding about the individuals with whom he will be dealing but not much more.

Clinton:  Hillary is a completely different story.  She has a long track record upon which to formulate an opinion.  This is the woman who thought Bush did such a horrible job of dealing with Russia that she thought we needed to “reset” the relationship.  She showed up to her first meeting with the foreign minister with a plastic button that she held aloft and called the “reset button.”  It was one of the most embarrassing moments in US/Russian engagement.  She looked like a complete idiot.  If you want a chuckle, google search the video of this encounter and look at the Russian foreign minister’s reaction.

She followed up by failing at every foreign policy challenge during her tenure.  Clinton and the Obama administration were inept at recognizing what was happening in Egypt, Libya and Syria.  They didn’t understand the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq.  They capitulated to Iran.  They still don’t know how to handle Chinese aggression in the South or East China seas.  They were inept at thwarting Russia in the Crimea and don’t know how to handle the Ukraine problem.  Under Clinton and Obama, Russian influence continues to grow unchecked.  Weakness, ineptitude and reliance on a misguided ideology defines US foreign policy under Clinton.  That is exactly what a man like Putin thrives upon.

But there is another reason Putin would have preferred Clinton in office.  That is his ability to blackmail her.  Remember those 33,000 missing e-mails?  Do you really think those were all about yoga classes and wedding plans?  Those e-mails have never been found and a lot of people think they exist in somebody’s server.  Is it the Russians?  It doesn’t matter.  The fact that they were ever on an unsecured server means they might have been hacked and could be released at any moment.

Think about that… let’s say Putin decides that he was unhappy with the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.  Those were part of the old Soviet Union and hold real strategic value today.  If Putin made moves upon them, he could have placed a call to President Hillary and remind her how terrible it would be if those e-mails suddenly were to appear on Wikileaks.  He could have held that card over her whenever he needed to.  He wouldn’t even need to have them.  Just the idea that he might is all that would be needed.  He would have had an awesome weapon to allow him to continue to expand Russian influence without serious opposition from the US.

If Clinton had won, Putin would have had a weak and inept leader who was susceptible to blackmail.  With Trump, he has an inexperienced but unpredictable counterpart.  Seriously… who do you think he wanted to win?

So why isn’t anybody in the media asking about this?  Why are they just taking at face value that the Russians interfered with the intent of helping Trump?  It seems shockingly obvious that the motive seems more than a little weak.  Did they do it in hopes of just further weakening Clinton but didn’t think she would actually lose?  Or maybe they didn’t do it.  Maybe it really was just poorly secured e-mail accounts that Wikileaks managed to access.  Maybe it was a variety of hackers who were successful against the DNC and Podesta but wasn’t state sponsored.  I don’t know…

All I do know is that the narrative pushed by the Obama administration and parroted without question by the media doesn’t make any sense.  It irritates me that nobody is questioning the narrative.  Even conservatives seem paralyzed by this and are afraid to ask real questions.