JOHN HINDERAKER: The Manchurian Candidate. “One of the debates now raging over the Obama administration’s falsification of intelligence relates to Vladimir Putin’s motive in trying to impact our 2016 presidential election. Barack Obama and John Brennan pushed the idea that Putin wanted Donald Trump to win the election, while the intelligence professionals saw little or no evidence of that preference, and believed that Putin was just trying to sow discord. But my question is: since when do we care about Russia’s preferences in our elections? For what it is worth, I think it is highly unlikely that Russia’s leaders have ever, in the post-war era, wanted a Republican to be elected president. We know for sure that in 2008, Russia backed Barack Obama. I wrote about it at the time.”