Hillary Clinton had set out to be the Commander-in-Chief of the United States, but she ended up being the crier-in-chief.
Fortified by chardonnay, she came out of the woods of Chappaqua, to once again take "responsibility for every decision I made" and yet brazenly claim "but that's not why I lost" to that brash billionaire political upstart: Donald Trump.
To the ever growing list of people and things -- from Russian meddling to FBI director James Comey -- she has blamed for her stunning defeat, Clinton added many more -- from her own Democratic Party to the New York Times to "content farms in Macedonia".
Implicitly criticising President Barack Obama, who had worked hard to hand her his mantle, she claimed to have put in her own money to oil a creaky, bankrupt Democratic machine she inherited as the party nominee.
The Times, which had endorsed her candidature, and most of the media covered the biggest "nothing burger ever" of her email scandal as if it were Pearl Harbour, she suggested.
And thousands of Vladimir Putin's spooks helped by Trump's people, spread fake news generated by bots on content farms in Macedonia on social media from Facebook to Twitter, she charged.
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Joining the media hunt to figure out what the tweeter-in-chief in White House meant by his truncated midnight rant about "negative press covfefe," Clinon cheekily hinted it was a secret message to Russia.
But Obama's one-time top diplomat isn't the only one playing the Putin card. From pollsters to prophets to pundits everyone is whipping the Russian horse in a bid to wipe the election night eggs from their faces.
And all the (former) President's men -- from faceless bureaucrats to spooks and spies have suddenly turned into "deep throats" emulating an FBI agent who in the 1970s fed information to two intrepid reporters during Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal.
Former CIA director John Brennan admitted that he egged on the FBI in the summer of 2015 to start an investigation into Moscow's "brazen interference" in the election after hearing about Trump associates' contacts with the Russians.
Even as he saw no signs of "collusion" between the Trump campaign and the Russians, Brennan would not say what he and his spooks did to prevent the alleged meddling in the intervening six months before the November 8 election.
And "friends and associates" of Comey, who apparently knowingly used a "fake Russian document" to usurp the authortity of his bosses at the Justice Department to label Clinton "extremely careless" and yet let her go scot free, have also become vocal after Trump fired him.
Media is going to town over leaked stories about what Comey is going to tell the Congress next week about Trump asking him to "pledge loyalty" or leaning on him to "let go" the probe of his fired National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
But few are talking about why he didn't tell the newly-installed President that such conversations were "inappropriate" or go and complain to the Congress or the Justice Department instead of just jotting it down in leaking memos.
Trump baiters are also crying hoarse about Trump's son-in-law and close adviser Jared Kushner talking with the Russian ambassador in a secret channel of communication with Moscow during the transition.
Going by the leaks, no such channel was ever set up. But no one is talking about what crime, if any, Kushner commited in his conversations with the envoy or with a Russian banker.
Meanwhile, "sore winner" Trump sparred with "Crooked Hillary Clinton" over her blaming "everybody but herself" and teased the media about his mysterious tweet: "Who can figure out the true meaning of 'covfefe' ??? Enjoy!"
And Putin set the cat among the pigeons by suggesting that some "patriotic" Russian hacking "artists" concerned about those bad-mouthing Russia may have been behind the alleged hacks during the US presidential election.
But he also made a very valid point. "Russo-phobic hysteria" in the US, he lamented, makes it "inconvenient to work with one another or even to talk".
"Some day this will have to stop," said Putin. If only Americans would care to listen!
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
--IANS
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