"You know, I had a little role in this election," he joshed. Nobody laughed. A few people averted their eyes and awkwardly inspected their fingernails.
Then Mr. Kaine went on to bitterly complain about "fake news" and trash Mr. Trump and his new security team.
However bad Mr. Trump's security team may be in Mr. Kaine's eyes, they cannot be nearly as demonstrably bad as Mr. Obama's security officials seated before the committee during the hearing.
These are the same people who have been protecting America's cyber interests for the past eight years.
And remember when they convinced Mr. Obama that the Islamic State was just a bunch of "JV" malcontents? Tell that to the people of Berlin and Nice and Turkey and Orlando and San Bernardino and countless other places.
Chief among the intel honchos is bald and bespectacled Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. This most highly trusted top spook can be trusted to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth -- except when he is lying.
Most famously, The Clapper was asked during a 2013 hearing by Sen. Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
"No, sir," The Clapper responded, only to be exposed as a complete liar within months.
During the hearing, he tried to differentiate between the espionage of hacking into American email systems and the efforts to use that information to supposedly tilt an election -- a political question that The Clapper has precisely zero expertise in and even less business opining about.
He defended the Obama intelligence team's failure to punish our enemies for their cyber espionage against us.
"I was a bit reticent," The Clapper babbled. "You know, people that live in glass houses shouldn't publicly throw too many rocks."
It was a strange comment that seemed to sail over the heads of the committee. But it is a startling glimpse inside the real Obama Doctrine.
This "Glass House Doctrine" holds that America is just another country in a hot, seething world of struggling countries. There is nothing unique here. We have nothing special to offer.
The United States of America is, as Mr. Obama said early in his presidency, exceptional -- but only in the same sense that every other country in the world is exceptional. Meaning, there is nothing exceptional whatsoever about the United States.
Jan. 20 cannot come soon enough.
" Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt|AT|live.comEmail address; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.
(Article changed on January 9, 2017 at 02:42)
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