In a World Where Hacking is Good and Leaks about Hacking are Bad

Trump and his supporters are very sensitive and much offended whenever the subject of  Russian hacking is raised. That unprecedented incursion into the conduct of an American election is no big deal because, they argue, there is no proof that the Russians penetrated voting machines and actually changed how ballots were recorded or tallied. Besides, the information about Clinton was true, so there is no reason to complain about its disclosure. As the Trumpites see it, the focus of the press on this historic breach constitutes an unjustified assault upon the legitimacy of the president's election.

While the absence of vote count manipulation is not disputed, the real concern, which has not been measured, is the extent to which, if at all, the disclosure of hurtful information about the Clinton campaign may have influenced the way citizens voted. Given the closeness of the election in many key states, even a small shift in voter sentiment driven by the Russian leaks could well have altered the outcome. Obviously, Trump and his minions believed the hacked information was significant as demonstrated by their incessant invocation of that material in the course of the campaign.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, and leaks from US government sources suggest the likelihood that Trump aides conspired with the Russians to affect the election, the Republicans are in full throat decrying the dastardly practice of disclosing information without authorization and, perhaps, in violation of law. Never mind that the information may be true, that the Trump campaign may have broken laws and time-honored precedents in bargaining for Russian assistance by among other things,  promising relief from sanctions in exchange for that assistance. Now the authenticity of the information is unimportant. The only thing that matters is the manner in which it was obtained. Thus, Republicans demand an investigation, not into Russian meddling but into who in the intelligence community made public the existence of evidence pointing to the involvement of the Trump campaign with the Russian hackers or those directing them.

Can one cite a better example of the old adage, "it all depends on whose ox is being gored"