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The establishment media went nutswhen President Trump said Thursday in Polandthat countries other than Russia may have been involved with meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

In a vacuum, the president saying that he thinks Russia meddled in the election, but it could have been others too would not cause so much controversy. But with a media so heavily invested in the Russia-Trump narrative leading to multiple misreports, retractions, and resignations, it makes sense that this is what the media would direct its laser focus on.

What they are ignoring, however, is the presidents broader point of questioning then-President Obamas role as commander in chief during the alleged Russian meddling, which CNN curiously labeled as Trump blamingObama.

From another, perhaps more sober viewpoint, Trump posed a legitimate question for those genuinely concerned about Russian hacking:

Why did [President Obama] do nothing about it? He was told it was Russia by the CIA and he did nothing about itThey said he choked. I dont think he choked I think what happened was he thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election and he said lets not do anything about it. Had he thought the other way, he would have done something about it.

The president makes a serious allegation about a former president ignoring cyber security breaches instead the media ignores and obfuscates by breathlessly reporting his claims that others may have been involved as well. The presidents allegation is not without merit, but Obamas culpability in the Russian hacking is a question seldom asked, let alone answered.

A Washington Postreport revealed that the CIA briefed the Obama White House as early as August 2016 that Russian President Vladamir Putin had ordered the interference of the 2016 election with the express purpose of helping elect Donald Trump. It was not until Oct. 7 that Obama revealed Russia was behind the hacking, and Putins role in directly ordering it was not released until December, an entire month after the election.

After Trumps victory in the 2016 election, the Obama camps buyers remorse kicked in, with one anonymous senior official saying that they sort of choked. Another senior official remarked that [t]he White House was mortified and shocked after Trump won the election, and a sense of wow, did we mishandle this overtook the national security team.

FactCheck.orgcalled President Trumps claim Obama did nothing misleading Thursday, but the conclusion flies in the face of comments fromformer high ranking intelligence officials in the Obama Administration.

In May, former acting CIA director under Obama, Micheal Morell, was struck that the administration was concerned enough about hacking to ask the Russians to stop but did nothing after the warning had fallen on deaf ears. Obamas former homeland security director, Jeh Johnson, said the inaction left him with a sense of cognitive dissonance.

Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, in a recent TV appearance,said that the Obama administration did think Hillary would win and that they did not want to be seen as putting their thumb on the scale. The Washington Posts, Aaron Blake, concludes that if Hillary Clinton had won the election Russian meddling would not be a big deal today, but since Trump pulled off a narrow upset, any number of factors could have tipped the scales. These comments can lead one to conclude that the Trump-Russia probe is little more than sour grapes in political circles and media outlets, and an attempt to act after the fact.

If Obama had thought Trump was going to win, would that have forced him to protect the country against cyberattacks. Was his inaction to intelligence reports of Russian meddling in the election politically motivated, and perhaps left our election processes vulnerable to foreign adversaries?

These are questions that demand answers from former Obama administration officials. But with an establishment media singularly focused on a narrative rather than journalistic integrity and duty, they are questions that will most likely remain unanswered.

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Media Obsessed With Trump-Russia Narrative, Dismiss Obama Culpability - The Daily Caller

ANCHORAGE (KTUU) - An Anchorage resident had a brief meeting with the 44th United States president on July 3, as he returned to America following a family vacation in Asia.

Jolene Jackinsky entered Signature Air Service at around 7:20 a.m. on Monday. She says she had entered the business looking for Iliamna Air, and told her baby that they would be going "bye bye" soon. At this point, Jackinsky said, former President Barack Obama, sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, remarked to her, asking, "Who is this pretty girl?"

Jackinsky said Obama then approached the two and asked to hold her baby and spoke with her briefly.

"He asked what our names were and where we were going. He talked about how fast they grow up and that he's got a girl who's going to college," Jackinsky said.

"When her dad walked in, Obama was still holding our baby and [Obama] said, 'Hey, I'm taking your baby!'"

A Signature Air representative confirmed that Obama was refueling there on Monday for about 40 minutes before continuing on his chartered flight back home.

"After that, he hopped on the plane and away he went," the representative said.

Bomb sniffing dogs with the TSA reportedly were on hand to clear the runway and the aircraft the president was traveling on. The secret service was also present on the flight, as is standard for all U.S. presidents.

As for when Obama and Jackinsky shared words, the president was similarly protected in the waiting room. "Two guys in black suits were sitting like 15 feet away, near the entrance," Jackinsky said.

The meeting and minor photo op lasted only about five minutes, according to Jackinsky, but it had a lasting effect, she said.

"It was unreal, very exciting. After I met him I couldn't believe I actually talked to him and he held my baby."

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Former President Obama stops in Anchorage on his way home from family vacation - KTUU.com

Donald Trump appears before the media in Poland. Photo: Michal Fludra/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Lawyers have a concept called arguing in the alternative, in which a counsel makes a series of mutually exclusive defenses against the prosecutions case. (My client shot him in self-defense/The victim was never shot at all/Somebody else shot him.) The strategy can work in a court of law, where a prosecutor must establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It does not work so well in real-life situations where you are trying to appear believable. Unless youre Donald Trump, in which case having long ago established your conviction that nothing you can do or say would alienate your core supporters (i.e., the Fifth Avenue Principle) you can present alternative facts or alternative arguments without embarrassment. In Europe today, Trump was asked about Russian meddling in the election. Trump surreally alternated between casting doubt on the certainty of Russian involvement, and flaying his predecessor for his failure to punish Russia:

Trump begins by casting doubt on whether Russia truly directed the hacks of Democratic emails:

I think it could have been other people and other countries. Could have been a lot of people interfered.

Then he pivots to his argument that, despite being given clear evidence of Russian involvement, Barack Obama failed to publish Russia swiftly enough:

Barack Obama found out about this, in terms of it it were Russia why did he do nothing about it? He was told it was Russia, by the CIA, as I understand it, and he did nothing about it. They say he choked Thats the real question, why did he do nothing from August, all the way to November 8th.

Then he pivots back to insisting the evidence of Russian involvement is not that solid:

Mistakes have been made Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure. I remember when I was sitting back listening about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction how everybody was 100 percent sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Guess what? That led to one big mess. They were wrong and it led to a mess.

And then, finally, Trump pivots back again to Obamas failure to act:

And then, finally, Trump pivots back again to Obamas failure to act:

But my big question is why did Obama do nothing about it from August all the way to November 8th.

To take the latter point first, Obamas tepid response to the Russian attack can certainly be questioned. Trump is referring to a lengthy Washington Post report, which includes the I feel like we sort of choked quote from an official. Trump goes on to (correctly) opine that Obama failed to act because he believed Hillary Clinton was going to win anyway.

But why else did Obama refuse to take more forceful action against Russia? Because Republicans clearly signaled they would treat any such action or statement by the administration as an illegitimate partisan effort to sway the election. The Republican leadership, briefed on the attack at the time, cast doubt on the intelligence and refused cooperation. Trump was publicly denying Russian involvement (it could have been some 400-pound guy on his bed, he insisted in September) while also publicly stating over and over that the election was going to be rigged.

So while Obama may have made the wrong decision, he didnt have any safe options. If he denounced the Russian attack or took stronger retaliatory action, and Clinton won (as most officials of both parties expected), he risked allowing the Republican Party to question his actions and delegitimize the election result. They would have called Obamas intelligence blaming Russia cooked. Like Trump is doing right now. Decisions are harder to make when you have to consider the legitimacy of an election being contested by partisan adversaries who are free to make alt-arguments.

There were no injuries, but the minor derailment caused more even delays at the troubled station.

Doctors said the congressman, who was shot last month, tolerated the procedure well.

The erosion of global power tends to become evident in a crisis.

A vote crucially affected by, say, foreign interference might be an injury without an obvious Constitutional remedy.

Let conservatives vote to fully repeal Obamacare then have moderates and Democrats immediately pass a bill strengthening the law.

The Trump administration wants to make space great again, too.

Seismic air-gun blasts help detect oil reserves. They also kill zooplankton the basis of every ocean food web. Trump is about to lift a ban on them.

Pat Toomey spills a secret: Republicans didnt have a policy plan because they didnt think theyd have the power to enact it.

The Atlantic City casino is having a liquidation sale.

Walter Shaub Jr. has clashed with the White House for months. Now hes leaving the government altogether.

The Education secretary is blocking new rules that would make it easier for students defrauded by for-profit colleges to have their debts forgiven.

White House staff reportedly started looking too late.

Agata Kornhauser-Duda avoided shaking the presidents hand like a pro.

The Trump administration is now openly threatening to use the Justice Department as a tool for punishing critical speech.

Trump lavishes praise on Poland, reaffirms his commitment to NATO, and even brings up Russia to a cheering audience.

Initially praised as brilliant, Cruzs idea of letting insurers offer cheap, skimpy health plans is now looking like a deadly threat to sick people.

Something will have to be done about North Korea, Trump told reporters in Poland.

The president displays his signature alt-arguments on the international stage.

After several decades, the effort to build a U.S. missile shield has had only mixed results.

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Trump: Obama Should Have Punished Russia, Which Might Be Innocent - New York Magazine

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Not Obama Is Not Enough Wall Street Journal (subscription) Fewer small businesses tried to hire in June while slightly more reduced employment, according to the monthly National Federation of Independent Business jobs survey due out later today. After months of optimistic readings, it seems that allowing the ...

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Not Obama Is Not Enough - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

The contrast could not be more extreme: a loud, pushy, anti-intellectual President Donald Trump versus a soft-spoken, recessive, philosophical former president, Barack Obama. The difference has become especially glaring in recent days, with Trump repeatedly breaking the tradition of a new president refraining from dissing his predecessor.

Trump has, in fact, gone out of his way to attack Obama, as in his recent nonsensical reversal wherein he attacked Obama for his lack of response to Russian meddling in the 2016 election: Obama did NOTHING, Trump tweeted. He went on to accuse Obama of colluding with the Russians!

By now the world is familiar with this Trump ploy: He engages in unscrupulous business deals, so he labels Hillary Clinton Crooked Hillary. He lies, so he calls Ted Cruz Lyin Ted. On and on. Anyone who calls him out on any failure gets the same accusation hurled back in his or her face, and to a shocking extent this trick works. Or it works with Trump supporters, who dont seem to care if he wrecks their health care, allows factories to poison their water, or provides massive tax cuts for the rich people they admire so much. This is making America great again.

The truth is, Obama confronted Putin directly about intervening in our political system and put in place sanctions, though he clearly didnt do enough. I feel like we sort of choked, one former colleague of Obama has said, according to an article in the Washington Post. This is too bad, as the Russians pulled off the crime of the century, possibly derailing Clinton, a tough critic of Russia. Today we have an incompetent President who (for reasons we might discover soon enough) appears unwilling to oppose the Russian regime.

Obamas weak responses to Trump have been troubling. I dont know why he didnt simply open the intelligence files on Putin to the American public, saying: My God, look what the Russians are trying to do! Put up your guard! There can be no sound reason for not alerting the people of this country to a major attack on their most cherished right, the right to vote.

Im also unhappy about Obamas response to Trumpcare. His language was strong enough:

The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill, he wrote in a Facebook post, blasting the Republican legislation that seeks to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He calls the proposed Republican plan a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America.

That is exactly what he should have said, but why is he only saying it in a Facebook post rather than in remarks to the press or in speeches.

Again and again, Trump strikes and Obama turns the other cheek. Whats going on here?

There is a longstanding Christian tradition of turning the other cheek, and thats usually the best approach to abuse. But one should remember that Jesus also turned over the tables of merchants and moneychangers in Herods Temple in Jerusalem. He accused them of transforming the holiest site in Judaism into a den of thieves. (Mark 11:17) I wonder if the analogy here, with Trump and his cohorts, isnt more apt than we think.

A friend of mine recently suggested that Obama was, at heart, a quietist. This is a mystical tradition that involves a quieting of the conscious mind, a withdrawal into the deepest layers of self, even self-annihilation. Political quietism involves stepping back from the activities of the world to focus on religious truth, and it condemns self-aggrandizement and the naked reach for power. It rejects the quest for wealth

But quietism seems misguided in this context. Political life is where we create a community. What is government but our community made visible? If we are to create a community that takes pride in how it cares for its own, one that promotes decent values, such as humility and tolerance and the wish to share, we have no choice but to step forward, to declare ourselves and speak up for our values.

Obama needs to find his voice now in ways that, during his time in the Oval Office, he was too often reluctant to do, perhaps fearing the immense power of the bully pulpit

But now there is a real bully in the pulpit, and Obama like the rest of us has no choice but to speak, and to act.

My hope for Obama is that, in his post-presidency, he steps forward boldly to say whatever feels true in his mind. And he must do so in the most public ways. I would urge him to speak up, not indirectly on Facebook, but to declare himself more publicly and without reservation, revealing his ideas, his passions. There may be some fatal flaw here, of course, one that disallows a full-throated singing of his song. But I hope it isnt so.

Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. His latest book is New and Collected Poems, 1975-2015. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. His latest book is New and Collected Poems, 1975-2015. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

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Obama can't keep turning the other cheek with Trump - The Philadelphia Tribune