© 2009 Hannah Born, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

John Podesda’s staff allowed Russians to hack into his eMail, and illustrate the fatal flaw of large bureaucracies.

I’m old enough to remember when Russian Hacking was just writing jokes for Yakov Smirnoff. Now it’s the the biggest news story of the week. Apparently Hillary blames the Russian Hacking for her loss.

Well not the hacking per se, but the information revealed in the hack. Much like other puppet shows, you’re not supposed to peek around back and watch the guy pulling the strings of the Campaign.

When Americans learned of their campaign tactics, support for Hillary vanished like a new dad outside Maury Povich studios. We learned she was getting debate questions in advance from CNN, that they conspired with the DNC to defeat Bernie Sanders, that the Clinton Foundation was used to launder bribes, and that she was overly cozy with Wall Street. These revelations were among other scandals that became too numerous to follow during the final days of the election.

But I think the hacking is also a big story. After years of complaining that Hillary’s use of an unsecured eMail server jeopardized State Department information; her critics have been vindicated. Hillary’s people are as sloppy as a Bangkok brothel full of drunken Secret Service agents. If John Podesta wasn’t able to keep his eMail hidden from Russian agents, what makes anyone think Hillary and Huma could?

Huma’s husband sure couldn’t. His political star was just starting to rise, when his inability to use Twitter correctly made him a national laughing stock. Here’s a hint for any other men entering a mid-life crisis: be sure you’re familiar with the workings of social media, before you start sending pictures of your genitals. Or here’s some better advice: just never send anyone pictures of your genitals.

But now that the story has been out there for a while, another wrinkle has surfaced. It seems that the Russians gained access to Podesda’s email because of a typo. According to the Daily Mail:

One of Podesta’s aides forwarded the email to computer technician Charles Delavan to check whether the message was legitimate.

‘This is a legitimate email,’ Delavan responded in an email . ‘John needs to change his password immediately.’

But Delavan told the New York Times in a story published Tuesday that the email contained a critical spelling mistake and he had meant to type the word ‘illegitimate’ instead of ‘legitimate’.

He said he knew it was a phishing attack and Delavan told the Times it was a mistake that has plagued him since. The Times traced Delavan’s email in an analysis of how the hacking scandal unfolded.  (full story)

It wasn’t actually the typo, it was the chain of command. Most people, who are not your Grandparents, would just delete a “Change Password” eMail. But that’s not the way it was handled at Clinton Headquarters.
Campaign protocol was to forward all suspicious eMail to the IT department for further review.

By now, most Americans know they should delete eMailed invoices for swing sets, written in broken English. But in the Clinton Campaign, the invoice has to be looked at by several people, before it can be verified that John Podesta never actually ordered a swing set.

If true, this is beautiful irony. The Clinton campaign was brought down by an inefficient bureaucracy, very similar to the one she envisioned for America. The same kind of bureaucracy that created the HealthCare.gov nightmare, and the same one that causes IRS help lines, to give out faulty information.

For all the concerns people have about President Elect Trump, there is one truth that is undeniable:

At least he knows how to use Twitter.