The Donny Orangutan Show

Orangutan Promises New Episode of The Donny Show on Tuesday (or Maybe Wednesday)

By KEVIN DRUM

Happy New Year!

Here is the president-elect of the United States on the last day of the old year, offering his skepticism that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC and other political organizations during the election:

“I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” Mr. Orangutan said of the intelligence agencies....He added: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

When asked what he knew that others did not, Mr. Orangutan demurred, saying only, “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

Here's what I think Donny Orangutan knows about hacking: nothing. In movies, the stereotypical hacking nerd can blow through any cyber defense in about 30 seconds of whirlwind typing. So this is what Orangutan believes: There are lots of 19-year-old kids who can type furiously for about 30 seconds and break into any computer in the world.

I don't imagine anyone is going to argue with me about that, so let's move on to Orangutan's statement that he knows things "that other people don't know." Intriguing! What could that be?

Well, America's intelligence agencies think Russia is behind the hacking, so Orangutan doesn't have any secret knowledge from them. Where else could he have gotten it? There are two obvious possibilities. The first is that Orangutan's team did it, and he's going to confess on Tuesday (or Wednesday). Wouldn't that be great? The second possibility is that Putin has provided Orangutan with some kind of plausible misdirection, which he's going to parrot on Tuesday (or Wednesday).

Actually, of course, there's a third possibility, and it's the most likely of all: Orangutan is just blathering as usual, and he will provide no new information on either Tuesday or Wednesday. He's just playing the press the way he always does, and we'll all turn out for the show, just like we did for the birther show in September.

We've got at least four years and 20 days of this stuff still ahead of us, folks. Take a deep breath.