sort of exasper ating about our politics and more straight ahead scary. according to "the post's" report one of the reasons that -- the other main reason the obama administration "ruled out any pre-election retaliation against moscow is because they feared what putin might do in response about the election. they feared that putin was prepared to go beyond fake news and e-mail dumps. "the fbi had detected suspected russian attempts to penetrate election systems in 21 states. at least one senior white house official assumed that moscow would try all 50. michael daniel, who was cyber security coordinator at the white house, tells "the washington post" "we turned to other scenarios that the russians might attempt." ""as brazen as the russian attacks on the election seemed, obama and his top advisors feared that things could get far worse.