By Ed Hoffman
If you’ve listened to Clinton’s water boy Stephanopoulos on ABC, journalistic disgrace Chuck Todd on NBC or literally anyone on CNN this week, then you’ve probably heard that we’re all supposed to be frightened out of our wits that Donald Trump chose a Secretary of State with economic interests in Russia, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. I was hoping for Rudy Giuliani myself, but so be it; Trump is making choices that are aligned with his “America first” mantra, and that’s the bottom line.
How does choosing someone like Tillerson reflect the promise of putting America first? First of all, it ensures that we have the respect of Russia and that is not such a bad thing. Putin clearly didn’t respect Barack Obama and John Kerry – but Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson, he holds in high esteem. If you ask Democrats, that’s a travesty; however, something tells me they would be fine with Putin respecting a President Hillary Clinton. Why do they worry about us being “hated around the world” only when a Republican is in power? When they’re in power, they seem to have no problem with other countries respecting us. Remember when Obama told Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” after the 2012 election and Medvedev replied, “I will transmit this to Vladimir”? The media refused to criticize that; they said it was Obama exercising good diplomacy with Russia. And as you know, that’s not what they’re saying about Trump this week.
Speaking of double standards, another issue that Democrats and the media all of a sudden care about is cybersecurity. This is something they laughed off during the election when it only concerned Hillary’s role in the hacking of her emails – but now that they can find the slightest hint of a connection to Trump behind it, it’s a huge deal. With the CIA providing intelligence that Russia may have been responsible for hacking and leaking DNC/Hillary staff emails to Wikileaks, the left wants us to believe that Russia interfering with our election was the only reason Hillary Clinton lost. They don’t seem to care about the actual content of the emails or who sent them, or why they were not secure.
So she didn’t lose because she was a terrible candidate who people find totally unrelatable? She didn’t lose because she showed no regard for the seriousness of her office when she used a private email address to conduct government business? She didn’t lose because she demonstrated gross negligence in the disastrous handling of Benghazi, where four Americans died on her watch? How about her using the Secretary of State position to get massive donations to her fake charity – that’s not the reason? According to the left, no; she lost because Russia wanted Donald Trump to win. Sure, that makes perfect sense.
As former FBI official James Kallstrom said this week, maybe it wasn’t the hacking that did Hillary in; maybe it was that Americans didn’t like what they found out about her when the hacked emails were released. Period.
They’re blaming Hillary’s loss on anything they can: first, they blamed the FBI for continuing to investigate her up to election day; next, they blamed it on racism (a myth Trump has debunked once again this week by meeting with prominent black entertainers); and finally, they blamed it on voter error (hence the failed recounts they demanded in states where it turned out Trump won by even more votes than previously thought). So now, all they can do is throw up flares designed to scare Americans into organizing against the incoming President Trump. Last week they focused on the call from Taiwan; this week, it was Russia. Trust me: When that doesn’t work, it will be something else.
As I’ve said on my show many times this month, people don’t realize how much happier they’re going to be when they’re getting a hand up, rather than the handout they’re used to under a Democratic administration. Once they see the prosperity of a Trump presidency for themselves, people will tune out the left’s insanity. When the proof of his success is right in front of them, it’s going to get harder and harder for anyone to convince them otherwise.
Ed Hoffman is host of The Main Event, which is broadcast on select talk radio stations in Southern California and is available on-demand via podcast. Follow him on Twitter @EdHoffman, and like him on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheMainEventEdHoffman.