Like many, I've long perceived former President Barack Obama as a strong communicator — among other things. Like many, I was struck by his 2004 DNC speech, recognizing that he was likely a political force to be reckoned with. (Full disclosure: At that time, I was still a Democrat, and had voted in the Democratic primary — probably for my fellow Missourian Dick Gephardt. My vote in the general election, however, went to George W. Bush — that's the clear line of demarcation (chronologically) between Democrat me and Republican me.)  

I did not enjoy the Obama presidency. I alternately gritted my teeth or rolled my eyes through much of it. By his second term, I had gotten more involved in the conservative movement and had ventured into the podcasting world — first as a regular guest, then co-host, then host of my own show for several years. I don't even recall what it was in relation to, but I do recall at one point referring to the then-president as "a mendacious twit." 

But even as my distaste for Obama grew, I still thought of him as a skilled communicator, though, in retrospect, that was likely in the context of delivering prepared remarks/speeches versus off-the-cuff comments. I mean, even extemporaneously, he was still leaps and bounds ahead of his vice president and future President Joe Biden, but being roughly 30 years younger when you assume the presidency — and being sentient — will do that for you. 

In any event, they say hindsight is 20/20, and never has that been more evident to me than when I watched this segment of an interview that Obama did with NPR's Steve Inskeep in December 2016. 

Now, to set the stage, it's important to consider the timeline here, given what we now know:

Clearly, something changed on or shortly before December 9, 2016. Obviously, Trump had won the election on November 8, 2016. But, at least in the materials we've been privy to thus far, we don't see the swing from "Yeah, the Russians are causing trouble" to "They were in it to help Trump and hurt Clinton" until right around the time of that December 9th meeting. 

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Which brings us to December 16, 2016, and Obama's interview with Inskeep/NPR. Here's the transcript from the segment contained in the above tweet. (The italicized portions are those actually shown in the video — I'm including the surrounding dialogue for added context.) 

Did the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee — and other targets — actually affect the results of the election in your view?

There's no doubt that it contributed to an atmosphere in which the only focus for weeks at a time, months at a time, were Hillary's e-mails, the Clinton Foundation, political gossip surrounding the DNC. And that whole swirl that ended up dominating the news meant that number one, issues weren't talked about a lot in the coverage. Huge policy differences were not debated and vetted. It also meant that, what I think would have been a big advantage for Hillary objectively, her experience, her knowledge, her outstanding reputation around the world as secretary of state, all that stuff got lost. And I think in that scrum, in that swirl, you know, Donald Trump and his celebrity and his ability to garner attention and obviously tap into a lot of the anxieties and fears that some voters have, I think, definitely made a difference.

Now know how you would, this ...

Could you say the election could have turned out differently? That's what I want to know.

Well, elections can always turn out differently. You never know which factors are gonna make a difference. But I have no doubt that it had some impact just based on the coverage. And by the way, I'm talking about mainstream news coverage. I'm not talking about a whole separate set of issues around fake news. I'm talking about what was in the New York Times and the Washington Post and on the nightly news and even on NPR. And it meant that the field where I think Hillary shone, the field of substance and talking about how we're actually gonna increase people's wages and how we're gonna provide health care coverage to people and how we're gonna deal with major issues like climate change — that wasn't the field in which the campaign was ultimately decided.

...

You talked about this with the comedian Trevor Noah the other day. And you said a number of things in a row. You observed that there had been contacts between members of Mr. Trump's staff and Russian officials. You noted that Trump benefited from the hacks. Your spokesman, Josh Earnest, has gone on to say this week that it's obvious that Trump knew what was going on. To what extent are you suggesting some kind of cooperation between the president-elect and Russian officials here?

Well, I'm, I'm not suggesting cooperation at all. Keep in mind that those statements were in the context of everyone now acting surprised by the CIA assessment that this was done purposely to improve Trump's chances. And my only point was that shouldn't be treated as a blockbuster because that was the worst kept secret in this town.

Everybody understood that. It was reported on. Steve, if you go back and look at your stories, if you read any mainstream publication, you would see that if you have a hack of the DNC and a hack of Hillary Clinton's most senior advisers' e-mails, and those things are then released in drip-drip-drip fashion over the course of months, and that seem to generate consistently negative coverage despite the fact that there's nothing in there that's particularly controversial, that it's mostly just, as I said, political gossip or routine emails between folks who are working in a campaign environment, then it's a pretty clear inference that people would draw, and did draw, that this was helping the Trump campaign and it was hurting the Hillary campaign.

That doesn't mean that the Trump campaign was coordinating. It just means that they understood what everybody else understood, which was that this was not good for Hillary Clinton's campaign. And when you combine that with the fact that the president-elect has been very honest about his admiration for Putin and that he hopes to forge a more cooperative relationship with him and focus on the threat of Islamic terrorism, then my only point was we shouldn't now suddenly act as if this is a huge revelation.

In October, we said, after being very careful about it because we had no interest in appearing as if we were putting our thumbs on the scales, we did what was almost unprecedented which was, every intelligence agency in the federal government arrived at a consensus, that the Russians had hacked the DNC. And the information that was now being released was as a consequence of a decision by Russian intelligence and Russian officials at the highest levels.

So what the CIA is now assessing, which was it was done purposefully to tilt the election in the direction of a particular candidate, shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. And in fact isn't a surprise to anybody.

And as I said before, the issue now is not relitigating the election. The issue now is for us to learn lessons so that we don't have an ongoing situation in every election cycle where you have substantial foreign influence in our campaigns.

A couple of things I want to note at this point: First, watching the video, I was struck by how slowly and carefully Obama seemed to be choosing his words. His demeanor was off — I wouldn't call it nervous, but...like he was working very hard at convincing us. 

Second, he does make the point to distinguish between the Trump campaign coordinating and simply benefiting from the Russian meddling. (That portion is in the transcript but not the edited video, and is not critical to the overall point. I just think it interesting that, at this point, he was seemingly trying not to directly accuse Trump or his campaign of colluding with the Russians. Maybe just laying the groundwork for later.) 

Most importantly, though, check out that last paragraph (in red) above. He completely gives away that the CIA was now assessing that Russian interference "was done purposefully to tilt the election in the direction of a particular candidate." Except...the ICA had only been requested by him a week prior, the authors of it were scrambling to get it pulled together in record time, and it wasn't released until January 6, 2017. So...how was it that on December 16, he already knew the assessment was/would be that the Russians were meddling with an aim toward helping Trump win? Unless he was simply running with/confirming the Washington Post "leak" as the assessment — before the assessment was completed. Little cart before the horse there, eh? 

Oops! It seems that little communications slip-up occurred to Obama (and/or his cohorts) while he was finishing the interview (which lasted a full hour), because, as the video and NPR transcript note: 

After the conversation, Obama returned to the room to say one more thing about the CIA.

You had something you wanted to add.

When we're discussing the issue of the Russia hack, I think it is worth noting that when it comes to the motivations of the Russians, that there are still a whole range of assessments taking place among the agencies. And so when I receive a final report, you know, we'll be able to I think give us a comprehensive and best guess as to those motivations. But that does not in any way I think detract from the basic point that everyone during the election perceived accurately that in fact what the Russian hack had done was create more problems for the Clinton administra — the Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign.

I think you're stopping short of endorsing the CIA conclusion that the hack was designed to help Donald Trump as opposed to some other objective.

Well I think the point I'm making is that right now what you've had are CIA leaks, not of an official document. And I think it's important for the process of various agencies comparing notes and thinking about these assessments. Because it's not as if in any of these circumstances, you know you just have a signed letter regarding Russian intentions that's floating around. These are all assessments made based on a wide range of evidence and different agencies are still looking at all that stuff gathering it together and hopefully putting into a single package.

That's precisely why I've asked that report to be issued before the 20th so that those aspects of at least that are not classified can be presented in some form to the public. Those aspects of it that are classified can be presented as we've consistently done on a bipartisan basis to the members of Congress and the relevant committees.

Whoops! So...after he gave the game away by definitively asserting what the CIA's assessment was/would be weeks before the ICA (which, of course, was supposed to be a combined effort of the CIA, the FBI, the NSA) would be released, he had to return for a clean-up on Aisle Obama and insist there was "still a whole range of assessments taking place among the agencies" and that the assessment that the meddling in favor of Trump was simply a "CIA leak" rather than anything official.  

And, of course, what then was the official assessment once the ICA was released in January was that: 

Why, it's almost like President Obama was prescient!

And not so much a skilled communicator. 

Editor's Note: The Trump administration is exposing Barack Obama and his administration's Russian Collusion Hoax.

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