The only person who has gotten under Hillary Clinton’s skin more than President Trump is Hawaii Congresswoman and presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard.

For some reason Rep. Gabbard really frosts the former First Lady’s cookies.

Well, I guess we should say she really boils her borscht, since Clinton seems to think that Tulsi is secretly working for the Kremlin.

On Democratic strategist David Plouffe’s podcast she said, ”[The Republicans] are also going to do third party again, and I’m not making any predictions but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” without naming Gabbard outright.

And then she went full-on Alex-Jones: “She is a favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. And, that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she’s also a Russian asset. Yeah, she’s a Russian asset. Totally.”

Even “The View’s” Joy Behar participated in the pile-on, calling Gabbard a “useful idiot,” giving ABC News some swell “shareable’ content for social media.

As far as I’m concerned, Joy Behar has no business calling anyone an idiot, even a useful one.

So the Russians are grooming third-party candidates to disrupt the Democrat Party?

Somewhere Lyndon LaRouche is saying, “Hillary Clinton is crazy.”

Gabbard’s offense? Being a legitimate anti-war candidate and marching to the beat of her own drum. The nerve …

Gabbard, a combat veteran, responded by tweeting, “From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.”

She continued, “Thank you@HillaryClinton You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.”

Tulsi had every right to fire back. After all, Hillary Clinton voted for the war in Iraq. All Tulsi Gabbard had to do was go fight it.

Well, unless you count the fictional sniper fire that Hillary dodged in Bosnia.

Though, I guess you can’t really blame Hillary.

Besmirching the reputations of attractive young brunettes kind of runs in the Clinton family.

What’s interesting is that Russian red-baiting in American politics is not new, and accusing a sitting congresswoman of being an asset of the Russians has actually been done before, by former President Richard Nixon.

Nixon famously used Clinton’s tactics against his 1950 U.S. Senate opponent, California Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas, D-Los Angeles, in a race that became known as “Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady.”

Nixon’s strategist, Murray Choitner, described their strategy as, “Discredit your opponent before your own candidate gets started … associate your opponent with an unpopular idea or organization, with just a suggestion of treason … above all, attack, attack, attack, never defend.”

Douglas’ votes in Congress were printed in the famous “Pink Sheet,” and compared to radical New York Congressman Vito Marcantonio.

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The Roberts Court is more complicated than it seems: Tom Campbell The press even got in on the action, editorializing that Douglas was “the darling of the Hollywood Parlour Pinks and Reds.”

Playbook sound familiar?

Even though Hillary Clinton loves to portray herself as a perpetual victim, her tactics are about as Nixonian as it gets.

Crazy conspiracy theories peddled by a woman with blonde highlights instead of tin foil on her head are conspiracy theories nonetheless.

And they should be treated as such.

John Phillips can be heard weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. on “The Morning Drive with John Phillips and Jillian Barberie” on KABC/AM 790.