Syurpriz, Syurpriz, Syurpriz!

In case you're not fluent, that's Russian for "Surprise, surprise, surprise!"

Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has handed down a list of indictments - a list that no one expected - and ... guess what?

Before we get to that, go read the indictment, if you haven't already.  Yes, it's 37 pages long.  But to play in the Curmudgeon's sandbox, you've got to go to the source document, read it, and discern the truth for yourself.  Don't let Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity tell you what it says, or what to think about it.  Go on, read it - I'll wait.

Okay, you're back, and you've read it?  Good.  And what did it say?

It said that 13 Russians and several shell companies they formed engaged in a campaign of cyber-misinformation with the intent of interfering in our electoral process.  To what end?

To sow discord among the American people over the political process.  (As if we needed the help.)

Not to get Donald Trump elected.  While some of their activities and propaganda were in support of Trump and anti-Hillary, some were in support of Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein.  In other words, support the candidates who will stir the pot, not the mainstream, same-ol', same-ol' politics-as-usual candidate.

Further, if they merely wanted to get Trump elected, they'd have left well enough alone once that happened.  But they didn't.  They staged rallies both for and against Trump after he was elected, but before he was inaugurated.  Why?

To sow discord.

Did Trump or his senior campaign officials participate in this?  Did they collude with the Russians named in the indictment?

No, they did not, as the indictment explicitly states.  The Russians, assuming false identities or outright stealing them, posed as American grass-roots activists and contacted unwitting, low-level, state campaign workers in key swing states to organize rallies.  And they started all this activity related to various candidates for the 2016 election in 2014, well before Trump announced his candidacy.  Again, why?

To sow discord.

Did the Russians' meddling affect the outcome of the election?  The independent Special Prosecutor made clear that it did not.  So why did the Russians do this?

Do I have to say it again?

Make no mistake, this is bad.  We can't have an enemy state - and Russia is without question an enemy state; we need no more proof than this - trying to disrupt our political processes, and trying to pit us against one another.  But even CNN's Michael Smerconish acknowledged that that is the extent of what we should be concerned about here.  Not collusion on the part of the Trump campaign.  Not a change in the outcome of an election.

We do, however, have evidence of high-level officials of a U.S. candidate's campaign, and of a U.S. political party's national committee, colluding with operatives connected to Russia in an effort to influence the outcome of the election.  It's just not the candidate or party that everyone's been pointing the finger at for the last 15 months or so.

The two saddest things about this are that 1) the Russians used our own political divide against us.  They played us for the unwitting, partisan dupes that we are.  We have met the enemy, and he is us, although there was some aiding and abetting going on.

And 2) we're continuing to let them win.  They left a trail that a blind, deaf dog who's lost his sense of smell could follow.  They wanted to get caught, and they're laughing about it.  They just wanted to show us what they could do.  And yet we continue with the very partisan bickering that they were trying to bring about, or make worse.

In short, the seeds of discord have been sown, watered, and fertilized, and they have taken root.  The Russians won, and we let them.

How could this happen?  Simple: our elected officials took their collective eye off the ball (like they did with ISIS, the "JV team"), and it smacked them square in that eye, leaving a pretty ugly shiner behind.

Remember the debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama prior to the 2012 election, when Romney was asked what he thought was the greatest threat against us?  His answer?

Russia.

In response, President Obama mocked him.  He stated that the Cold War ended 20 years prior, then issued the now-famous line: "The '80s just called, and they want their foreign policy back."

Well, we all want it back, too.  Romney was right.  And the Cold War isn't over, it's just being fought in the cybersphere with weapons like identity theft and Facebook posts, instead of in missile silos with nuclear warheads.

Thanks, Obama.