UNITED STATES

The U.S. intelligence agencies are sworn to defend America from attack.

Intro: From the outside, it must seem like a script-writer’s dream.

Salacious and unverifiable reports of Donald Trump’s private life have been circulating among US media outlets for some months. US intelligence agencies believed that many of these reports have been sufficiently credible that they chose to brief President Barack Obama and Mr Trump.

Understanding the nature of the accusations is important. The decision by US intelligence has largely been shaped by two factors. The first is the information and credence given to them by federal agencies. The second, that the man in question is the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world, not a private citizen, and that his actions could have a direct impact on all of us.

Mr Trump has now blamed the intelligence agencies for allowing these uncorroborated reports to be leaked to the media, and has compared these actions as being like those of the Nazis in wartime Germany.

What has become a bit lost in the political storm and plethora of everything that is happening is the first admission by Mr Trump that Russia had been behind the hacking attacks on the Democratic Party during the election. Previously, the President-Elect had claimed the intelligence agencies had got these matters wrong and were directly involved in a political witchhunt against him. Sworn to defend America from attack, US intelligence agencies must be bewildered.

From the outside, it must seem like a script-writer’s dream. As the plot deepens – from what sounds much like the subterfuge within a spy novel – where should attention be focussed?

Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson told his Senate confirmation hearing that Russia probably was behind the cyber-attack, that it has pursued military action to further its own interests (in Syria), and that weak US leadership had allowed Russia to become dominant.

As chief executive of Exxon Mobil, the most profitable oil company in the world, Mr Tillerson previously sanctioned multibillion-dollar deals with Russia’s state oil company, Rosneft. He was duly awarded an Order of Friendship by the Kremlin.

Contrasting this against such language used by President-Elect Trump should seem more than trivial. Mr Trump denied all the allegations saying it was ‘phoney stuff’ and only ‘sick people’ could come up with ‘that crap’. He said that CNN was ‘fake news’ and described Islamic State as ‘number one tricky’.

The world would have noticed in President Obama’s farewell speech in Chicago the eloquent tribute he paid to his wife, Michelle. Mr Obama said: ‘You took on a role you didn’t ask for and you made it your own with grace and grit and style and good humour. You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody.’

We should know the difference between rhetoric that inspires optimism as against that of fear and loathing.