Putin Shoots Himself In The Foot (Brian Whitmore, 5/09/17. Radio Liberty)

The hacking didn't work.

The leaks didn't work.

The fake news didn't work.

And the smear campaign didn't work.

So now the Kremlin is saying: can't we all just get along?

In his congratulatory message to Emmanuel Macron yesterday, Vladimir Putin called on the French president-elect to overcome the "mutual mistrust" between Paris and Moscow.

That's pretty rich when you consider who created the mutual mistrust.

It's pretty rich given that for months the Kremlin-backed media and Kremlin-backed social-media trolls have been relentlessly smearing Macron with lies, rumors, and innuendo.

It's pretty rich when in the midst of the French election campaign, Putin hosted Macron's rival, the nationalist Marine Le Pen, in the Kremlin.

And it's pretty rich considering that a cyberattack on Macron's campaign and a data dump on the eve of the election looked suspiciously like the Kremlin's handiwork.

It can't work out worse than backing Donald did.