One of the most memorable moments of the 2012 presidential debates came when the candidates were asked what they believed to be the chief national security threat facing the United States. Mitt Romney said ‘Russia’. Barack Obama thought that was ridiculous. ‘The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,’ Obama retorted, to the general hilarity of the panel and much of the audience.
But that was before Hillary Clinton, the candidate whom Obama had anointed to win in 2016, performed the impossible and lost to Donald Trump.
All of a sudden it was Russia, morning, noon, and night. Donald Trump must have ‘colluded’ with the Ruskies. It was the only answer to the otherwise imponderable question: how could Hillary Clinton lose? Every-one knew that she was a shoo-in, just as everyone knew that Donald Trump was a vulgar buffoon whose candidacy was a bad joke.
The only fly in this ointment was that no one could find any evidence that Trump had colluded with the Russians.
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