Obama's hypocrisy when it comes to interference in our politics - New York Post

President Obama’s announced retaliation against Russia’s interference in last month’s presidential election is welcome, but spare us the sermon about interfering in other countries’ politics.

Obama did his utmost to manipulate internal politics in allied countries — and specifically democracies boasting special relationship with America.

He accuses Vladimir Putin’s Russia of violating “established international norms of behavior” by interfering in our political process. So did Obama, although he was never all that successful.

Let’s first stipulate the obvious: The Russian hacking is real. Our infrastructure and some of our most cherished institutions, as well as our political system, are under cyberattack.

So if Obama, in the last three weeks of his presidency, can find ways to instill fear in Moscow and build up some cyber deterrence, he’ll have used his 11th hour well. It’d be a welcome change, too: The world has stopped fearing America in all other fields during the last eight years.

But regrettably, Obama is in no position to whine about interference in another country’s politics.

Remember the summer’s referendum in Britain about leaving the European Union? Days before Brits went to the polls, Obama flew over to London to threaten that if Brits approve Brexit, they’d be headed to “the back of the queue” among US trading partners. Shortly after his preferred side lost, Obama did a 180, making his initial threat as empty as a Syrian red line and rendering it mere political grandstanding.

Yet nowhere has Obama been more obsessed with defeating a politician as in Israel. Like Captain Ahab, he’s all-in pursuing his Moby-Dick, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The hunt continues down to the last minute of his presidency.

Hoping to force Israel to help him justify an unearned Nobel, Obama tried and failed to defeat Bibi in two Israeli elections, in 2009 and again in 2015 — sending to Israel a battery of political consultants, pollsters, funds, you name it. A congressional inquiry over the summer found that the Obama administration spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to boost an anti-Bibi campaign in Israel run by a former Obama campaign staffer.

Then, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech bemoaning the fact that Obama didn’t get the Israeli government he wanted.

So yes, let’s hope Obama succeeds in pushing back on Putin. But empty talk of some imaginary “international norms of behavior” rings hollow.