I hate to say this, because it's a shame in many ways and people SHOULD care about this conflict...but my guess is most don't.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

McMentum!

Did McCain's senior foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, put Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili up to provoking Russia?
LINK

One must ask...what is their purpose and role there? Is it for Bush or just McCain's campaign and future ads...this is so twisted and really beyond belief. that's is all we need right is for lieberman and graham to do something stupid because I can't imagine what they can do about the crisis and war! Maybe they have secret powers...This is fucked up!

Not so presumptuous as dangerous.

Saakashvili will probably show up on the talking head shows as a McCain surrogate, while screwing up the foreign relations that actually matter to his country (those with Russia) even more.

This is fucking nuts.

This could actually provoke Russia into starting something - if those two fools go over to Georgia.

what a fucking idiot. we should make a pool to see which blowhard pundit uses the word "presumptuous" for mccain.

The only thing funnier than McCain dispatching Lieberman and Graham is Bush dispatching Condeleeza Rice. How many Neo-cons does it take to put a Kremlin back in it's bottle?

Let's see some Barack surrogates come out and call bs on this kind of political exploitation.

Paging Jim Webb ...

Well I guess I'd like to be a Georgian as McCain presumes I am - that is if I was part owner of the lobbying firm which lobbies on behalf of Georgia - that McCain's top foreign policy advisor still owns.
McCain is stepping in it big time this week,
might look good in short run to some, but it will come back to bite him.
If I were Russia - from a strategic standpoint I would perhaps provoke an incident with the Bush administration and their "military" humanitarian assistance.
Bush and McCain's shortsightedness in having gotten us bogged down in Iraq would be on display for the world to witness - in the form of Americas military impotence.
Perfect time for Obama to be on vacation - while Bush, McCain and his lobbyists step in the deep doo doo they created from whole cloth.

pre·sump·tu·ous

Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French presumptious, from Late Latin praesumptuosus, irregular from praesumptio

Date: 14th century

Definition: overstepping due bounds (as of propriety or courtesy), taking liberties

Does anyone know why this was all such a surprise? Don't we have satellites up in the sky that can read a license plate? Yet the Russians moved tanks and divisions, and boats to the border of Georgia and attacked, and no one knew it was coming?

Do we even HAVE a CIA? Or are they just helping the White House nail people like John Edwards (sorry, no. That was probably the FBI). Are they all out looking for the next "Curveball" to give us an excuse to raid Iran? Or are they just sleeping?

How could this be so unexpected? I am assuming that the Prez didn't know about it, or he wouldn't have stayed in China goofing around with the volleyball players and winking at Putin when there was an international incident brewing, WOULD HE?

Any ideas, folks?

If Mc has such good contacts why didn't he tell us this was coming?. Why didn't he tell Georgia what they did was stupid and exercise some restraint? Did he encourage Georgia to think Nato would support them? Did he try to start WWIII to win an election?

I know this will sound crazy but I'll be praying for their safe return. You don't even want to imagine what would happen if they were to be harmed in any way. Ditto for SecState.

They are going into a war zone and Russia has yet to make clear just how far they're going to take this. That's a real risk of an accident.

This and the SecState visit are just nice alley-hoop passes to Putin to flex a little more so that he can thumb his nose at the US and the West some more. It's all a big front, we CAN'T DO SHIT about this that is going to make Russia stop until Russia decides they want to outside of nukes and no one is going to go there over Georgia right now.

This is a mistake and it will backfire. I must say I'm disappointed in Obama for allowing the campaign atmosphere to get him to call for a NATO membership with Georgia. That idea is the actual recent genesis of the current crisis and will only serve to escalate things. We need to be fast-tracking Russia into more international organizations, holding direct talks with them on a whole range of issues and engaging them at every opportunity. If they're not stakeholders in the system then they won't play ball in that system and you end up with results like we're seeing. Co-opting them is the only viable option in the long run.

At what point is someone in power going to tell these guys to stick it up their a$$es? Oh yeah, there's not really anyone in power.

Johnny Boy - there's only one president a t a time and you ain't it.

Hey guys, Fox News is reporting Colin Powell will endorse Obama and speak at the convention!

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/13/kristol-colin-powell-to-endorse-barack-obama/

I think Clinton should go with them. She also on the Commitee.

Can you imagine what the mainstream media would be saying if Obama had dispatched Jack Reed and Wes Clark to Georgia?

It is presumptuous, period.

During his press conference, McCain said this:

"In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations."

Excuse me while I go and throw up my lunch...

I absolutely love it. McCain is crabbing about not making this a political issue, all the while going out of his way to make it a political issue.

And the MSM is buying his garbage. Obama was raked over the coals for much, much less. I believe the code world was "presumptuous". Rock solid proof that the MSM just doesn't have an unbiased bone in their body.

John McCain is playing President here and I wish the Obama camp would call him on it. Of course then the McCain camp would cry "Mean Obama is trying to make politics out of a war".

McCain wants to have his cake and eat it too, and the MSM and Obama camp are letting him.

What is the purpose of Lieberman and Graham going to Georgia? Who are they speaking on behalf of? They can't make any promises on behalf of the United States - Are they going to promise "If McCain gets elected in five months here's what we'll do..."

This is madness.

Are people under the impression that Americans want war with Russia? Why can't the Democrats come out of their bunker long enough to point out how many wars the Republican candidate would like us to fight.

Somebody find another kid with a daisy.

Color me negative, but experience has shown that the merits of the thing (why there's an armed conflict between Russia and Georgia; whether McCain should be responding to it as he is; whether he has anything valid to say about it) don't matter to Joe Average. The fact is, McCain is appearing to be responsive and tough, which translates as ready to lead for much of America.

sounds like a song...

Joe and Lindsey went to Georgia with a news cycle to steal
McCain was in a bind 'cause he was behind the times
and he was willing to make a deal...

"...two top [McCain] surrogates, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, are going on a visit to Georgia."

Note to Georgians: One's an idiot and the other one's an asshole.

McCain would be better off if he sent Britney and Paris instead.

WHAT is Condi the Incompetent going to do over there?
Play the piano?
Maybe Lieberfraud and Grahm Closeted can be her pageturners...

it seems sen. mccain is being a bit um.. presumptuous, yeah that's the word, in his response to this. absolutely no politics going on here either, just concern for the welfare of the Georgian people. i'm sure we'll be hearing this from the MSM any moment now...

OK, I'm watching MSNBC and this ditzy woman just said that McCain is the winner here/ he is the one who is the leader!

I'm going to jump of a cliff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwzsIV_ESEY&e

Umm...yeah. And McCain claims to have knows Saakashvili for 25 years, which considering Saakashvili is all of 41 years old means McCain has known his since he was 16.

Okay. It's 2 am in the morning here, so let's toss out some humor on the subject.

Suppose Lieberman and Graham some how can get the State Department to sponsor them into a war zone. Complete with sleeping arrangements and body guards for their personal protection. As if the Embassy staff have nothing better to do at the moment.

Now suppose the next day, both venture out to face the "enemy" for a face to face chit-chat. Chances are, they'll run head on into advance troops. And chances are those troops will be under strict orders to secure the area and persons found in those areas.

Now suppose those troops are working under a set of rules of war that states any person caught in a war zone is to be considered an enemy combatant until proven otherwise?

Now suppose there is an international incident where two sitting Senators are being held as enemy combatants in a war zone.

Sounds like Hamlet sending Rosencrantz and Guilderstern off to their unexpected deaths.

Isn't it great that John McCain is running American foreign policy? If this was Jesse Jackson or Jimmy Carter doing this they would be derided by the GOP and conservatives everywhere as being weak, ineffectual, and meddling.

I can't believe that Bush, even as a lame-duck President, would allow McCain to usurp all of that unitary executive power he fought so hard to secure.

Absolutely shameful all the way around.

Hey people: e-mail this link to EVERYBODY you know, right, middle or left -

http://phoenixnewtimes.com/content/printVersion/848709

It is a piece of journalism which could make history, if enough people see it.

Good for McCain!!!

He is a leader and does not need to wring his hands and wonder what to do in the face of an international crisis involving one of our allies under attack.

I too hope more of our Senate Armed Services Committee members go. If not McCain's delegates will be able to access the situation and become invaluable advisors, not to mention showing our support of Georgia.

A little realism from the CSM:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0814/p01s01-woeu.html

Evidently McCain's idea of political theater runs to farce.

What oh what will he do for a second act?

Oh I got it

Deliver his acceptance speech in Tbilisi
We are all Georgians now, after all

When they told Johnny Mc. that the russkies had invaded Georgia he decided to send Lindsey Graham because he was from a neighboring state.

John McCain.
Last in his class at the academy.
Last in Geography for this election.

Iran borders who?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/14/russia.georgia

* * *

"But underlying the conflict of the past week has also been the Bush administration's wider, explicit determination to enforce US global hegemony and prevent any regional challenge, particularly from a resurgent Russia. That aim was first spelled out when Cheney was defence secretary under Bush's father, but its full impact has only been felt as Russia has begun to recover from the disintegration of the 1990s.

Over the past decade, Nato's relentless eastward expansion has brought the western military alliance hard up against Russia's borders and deep into former Soviet territory. American military bases have spread across eastern Europe and central Asia, as the US has helped install one anti-Russian client government after another through a series of colour-coded revolutions. Now the Bush administration is preparing to site a missile defence system in eastern Europe transparently targeted at Russia.

By any sensible reckoning, this is not a story of Russian aggression, but of US imperial expansion and ever tighter encirclement of Russia by a potentially hostile power. That a stronger Russia has now used the South Ossetian imbroglio to put a check on that expansion should hardly come as a surprise. What is harder to work out is why Saakashvili launched last week's attack and whether he was given any encouragement by his friends in Washington.

If so, it has spectacularly backfired, at savage human cost. And despite Bush's attempts to talk tough yesterday, the war has also exposed the limits of US power in the region. As long as Georgia proper's independence is respected - best protected by opting for neutrality - that should be no bad thing. Unipolar domination of the world has squeezed the space for genuine self-determination and the return of some counterweight has to be welcome. But the process of adjustment also brings huge dangers. If Georgia had been a member of Nato, this week's conflict would have risked a far sharper escalation. That would be even more obvious in the case of Ukraine - which yesterday gave a warning of the potential for future confrontation when its pro-western president threatened to restrict the movement of Russian ships in and out of their Crimean base in Sevastopol. As great power conflict returns, South Ossetia is likely to be only a taste of things to come."

Was there a coup and McCain became president?

Since when does a candidate interfere in U.S. policy like this? And what's with sending your campaign surrogates?

If Obama did this, he have his head handed to him by the media and the republicans.

It's really all about the oil deal that brought a pipeline thru Georgia, and away from Russia. C Boyden Gray is the quiet architect of the oil run around, apointed by W as the Eurasian Energy Ambassador...he's a died in the wool wing nut Federalist Society Cheney aide and family confidante of 41 and 43...

Hey Guys Mcsame knows how to win wars. Tell him to go win this one. And make sure all his lobbist friends are in command