The issue: In its own twisted way, blaming us was a sincere if backward form of flattery

The Kremlin’s default position for the much that goes wrong in Russia has always been to blame the United States. But the current leadership may be losing a step or two.

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS took place Sunday, Dec. 4, and almost immediately there were massive public protests against the regime and its clumsy, and not totally successful, attempts to rig the outcome.

And whose fault were the protests? The United States, of course, and most specifically Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Clinton “gave a signal” to the opposition. “They heard the signal, and with the support of the U.S. State Department began their work.”

As proof, Putin cited the speed with which Clinton criticized the elections. “The first thing that the secretary of state did say was that they were not honest and fair, but she had not even yet received the material from the observers,” he said, tacitly indicating that there was something to the charges.

Actually, Clinton would have been safe in saying even before the balloting that the elections were not honest and fair. The Kremlin outlawed many rival political parties, barred certain candidates from the ballot, denied opposition candidates access to the state-controlled airwaves, banned many of their rallies and, shortly before the voting, cracked down hard on the country’s only independent election monitor.

IT MUST BE FLATTERING to Clinton that Putin believes that, with a wink and a nod or a change of hairstyle, she can send hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets across Russia to denounce Putin’s ruling United Russia as “the party of thieves and crooks.”

Clinton is good, but, let’s face it, she’s not that good.

In 2002, when the submarine Kursk sank with all hands on board, the Russian military immediately blamed the United States, saying the boat must have been rammed by a U.S. sub in the area. An investigation showed that sloppy maintenance caused its torpedo warheads to explode.

Russia also has accused us of causing the 2010 Haitian earthquake by testing a massive undersea weapon meant for use against Iran. And the U.S., of course, was behind the country’s 1998 economic collapse and debt default. That same year, the Kremlin said the U.S. and NATO intervention in Yugoslavia was a smoke screen to conceal our plans to invade Russia. And, oh yes, the Russian mafia is our fault, too.

THE KREMLIN may have cried “U.S.!” once, or maybe many times, too often. Political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told the Associated Press that ordinary Russians would shrug off Putin’s attempts to blame the U.S. for his troubles.

“Even in Soviet times, it did not work,” he said. “Now it won’t work for sure.” Too bad. In its own twisted way, blaming us was a sincere if backward form of flattery.

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