The Democrats Need To Exploit the DNC Hack, Not Run From It

From The New York Times:

An unusual question is capturing the attention of cyberspecialists, Russia experts and Democratic Party leaders in Philadelphia: Is Vladimir V. Putin trying to meddle in the American presidential election?

Until Friday, that charge, with its eerie suggestion of a Kremlin conspiracy to aid Donald J. Trump, has been only whispered.  But the release on Friday of some 20,000 stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers, many of them embarrassing to Democratic leaders, has intensified discussion of the role of Russian intelligence agencies in disrupting the 2016 campaign.

Now I know that the Democrats want to take a positive tone during their Convention, particularly given the vitriolic GOP shit-show of a convention we witnessed last week. As the First Lady said last night: "[O]ur motto is, when they go low, we go high.”

But for Christ Sake, it's time for the Democrats to start making lemonade out of lemons when it comes to the DNC hack.  The talking points practically write themselves.  For example, the Democrats could say that Putin, by trying his best to get Trump elected, is going out of his way to turn the White House into "Kremlin West."

Trump is certainly making it easy for the Democrats to take this position, given that he went out of his way to make the GOP party platform as pro-Putin as he possibly could. And not long ago, Trump actually stated that he might not back NATO countries if Russia attacked them. If that isn't enough for the Democrats to make the argument that Putin will have a puppet in the White House if Trump gets elected, then their standards are way too high, particularly given that we are now living in the Post-Truth Era. The GOP milked the "Benghaaazi Scandal" for years on a lot less.

The Democrats could tie the Putin Connection in with the fact that Trump really doesn't want to be president.  As recently noted here, Trump's people told a staffer for John Kasich that Donald will want his vice-president to handle foreign and domestic affairs. In other words, he wants to be a do-nothing president and let others do the heavy lifting.  The Democrats could argue that Trump wants it that way so that his buddy Putin could have an easier time getting a foothold in the White House.

Anyway, the Dems need to grow a pair and start using the Russian hack of the DNC to their advantage.  Trump, as the GOP nominee, will soon begin receiving intelligence briefings.  The Democrats should openly suggest that Trump will share these briefings with his good friend in the Kremlin. Time to take the gloves off.