I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

I'm sure the Iraqi Kurds appreciated all the pleasant words we sent their way back in '91.

Crazy old bag of gas...the man's a menace

Watching him read the stuff on this card, I'm reminded of Anchorman....

What a ridiculous speech.

zzzzzzzzzzzz

Go, Bulldawgs!

Yeah, we are all Georgians today, becuase like Georgia in Ossetia, we prosecuted a stupid ass military campaign in Iraq...and like Georgia, we miscalculated, and paid a price for it.

Sure Russia used heavy handed tactics this week. Sure their move towards openness and democracy is in the toilet. But are we surprised? Putin is a KGB man, not a Statesman. And he's a shrewd S.O.B at that. Russia isn't stupid enough to actually try and occupy the place. Only we would be dumb enough to do something like that. They accomplished all they needed to, showing their former bloc states who the real power in Eastern Europe is, and the current value of American "support".

Check.

Your move world.

this is a very weird speech.

georgia is important because it has christianity
christianity="western civilization"
georgia conflict bad="russian ambitions"

It then becomes a "news report" talking about what happened during the conflict and then projects what russia's reasoning is for their conflict with georgians as some sort of hatred of "the west".

cold war mentality all over again.

why no big speech about darfur?

So now comes the wag-the-dog question: Saakashvili's motivations here are unclear and getting moreso. Unless he's a complete naif, it would have taken more than vague hope to induce him to poke an already restive bear. If American and Israeli advisors were there as recently as last week, what are the chances that Bush and Cheney are using Saakashvili as a cat's paw to influence the course of the election at home? It's at least worth wondering if more concrete promises were made to him in order to encourage him to take such a perilous step.

A tragic and unwinnable war that costs the US comparatively little, exercises the Russians at home, and reminds everyone at home how dangerous the world is? Plenty of quasi-executive photo-ops for McCain? Speeches drawing upon the candidate's personal recollections and direct experiences in the country? In domestic terms, it all starts to seem very tidy.

Short of a terrorist attack, there was going to be very little that would make McCain look presidential, but I can see how they might think that this would do it. The complexities of the region (not to mention of McCain's own ties to the Georgians) are such that, for Obama to invoke them would make him look waffley in a time of war, in contrast to McCain's gently bumbling decisiveness.

I usually hate this kind of thinking, but I can't help but wonder if the whole episode is playing out exactly as some in the White House would want it to. It gives the US a big black eye geopolitically, but it may translate into a few points of support domestically. Anyone want to hazard a guess which of the two matter more to these guys?

I just have to add....Saakashvili said "Thank You"????? He should have said "Fuck You".

This speech is some of the most disengenuous bullshit I have ever heard. Any American that thinks we are somehow superior in our values than Russia right now is a twit. McCain is wrapping himself in an America that he helped destroy over the last 8 years. Iraq, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Rendition, etc. has burned up all of our "good guy" cred. And let's not kid ourselves, we held out the hand of friendship tp Georgia not because we love Democracy, but because we wanted to stick it to Russia, and pursue some asshat policy of pushing NATO into the former Soviet states.....The very policy people I usually loathe (like Henry Kissinger) warned us would end in disaster for those countries, and would push Russia further into a corner. We fucked this up, America. Don't let John McCain fool you.

Sorry, that's just my .02. This whole thing just makes me crazy. Just another oversimplification sold to the American public with the willing help of the MSM.

I need a nap.

It would be nice to think that McCain is just harmlessly shooting his mouth off. But he's not. It's more of the same Bush administration encouragement to the Georgians that contributed to the current mess.

What McCain's doing is encouraging Saakashvili to hang tough and reject the peace offer Sarkozy is bringing from Moscow. This could turn out to be very bad for the Georgians and for everyone else involved.

Wait, so today we're Georgians? Whatever happened to America First? :P

why is a senator from arizona holding talks with a foreign head of state? and why is that senator from arizona speaking for all americans?

i know the point's been made elsewhere, but this doesn't exactly square with the whole "presumptuous" line of bullshit that hurled at obama.

And tomorrow we're going to send the 82nd Airborne to Georgia, or so Newsweek would like to have us do:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/152012

Washington has every right to send "peace-keeping" troops into Georgia if Saakashvili requests it. The 82nd Airborne, its brigades newly returned from Iraq, could be mustered as a guarantor force.

Yeah, a great idea. Send our elite airborne unit to the border of Russia to take on artillery and heavy armor.

The Nation on how

Perhaps we are finally going to get a peek at "The Real McCain."

I'm reminded of an article by Matt Welch published in Reason magazine last year:

"Be Afraid of President McCain: The frightening mind of an authoritarian maverick"

Here's one particularly notable quote:

"McCain’s stubborn and distinctly glum support of Bush’s widely despised troop surge in Iraq has brought into sharp focus the candidate’s concepts of when and how Washington should use the strongest military ever assembled, and whether the president should recognize any constraints from the co-equal branches of government. On these questions, the most militaristic presidential candidate since Ulysses S. Grant has provided a clear answer: If you think George W. Bush had an itchy trigger finger, you ain’t seen nothing yet."

http://www.reason.com/news/show/118937.html

wtf?

"McCain added: "And I know I speak for every American when I say to him: Today, we are all Georgians."

No we aren't. Speak for yourself, you corrupt lobbyist-addled jerk.

I don't think America has to own the mess created by Georgia with its separatist region. Russia's response was overkill, but Georgia is hardly innocent.

And finally, instead of playing World's Policeman, is it too much to ask, what has/will Georgia ever do for us, other then try to draw us into a conflict that is essentially one between it and Russia?

let's see, in georgia you can be tried as an adult at age 12, and last year during the last election while the "president" declared "emergency powers." sounds like the country mcCain wants to lead.

McCain can have the endorsement of the Georgian President who strated this mess... It seems Obama has the French President's endorsement... Who actually did something to stop the violence.

Whoever said McCain wasn't inspiring?

Pundits are wrong to say McCain's wants a new Cold War with Russia. Cold wars are so 20th century. What McCain wants, and what America needs, is a HOT war!

I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to go fight the Russians!

Who's with me?!?

Anyone?

Yes, the Lawn Jockey in Chief is great at condemning Bush and McCain and HRC but Putin? Not so much...
What we get is Hussein taking it up his ass and calling it "statesmanship".
And a bunch of limp dick "progressives" rooting on the illegal invasion of a fledgling democracy by the Putin Goon Squads.
What a pathetic bunch of losers...
And by the way, since you seem to have missed the memo, Hussein no longer thinks it's all everybody's fault.
No the Queen of FlipFlop has finally had the decency to recognize and denounce Russia's criminal behaviour for what it is you dickheads.
And as soon as the prick tells which way the wind is blowing he'll come out even more strongly against Putin.
It's just like offshore drilling, Hussein is a say anything lying asshole.
Only the ObaAsswipes see no problem with that.
The great thing is that Hussein no longer gets to play the "Oh he called me nigger!" get out of stupid card. Bob Herbert and his Tower of Pisa fantasies (he must be dying to blow Hussein) has seen to that...

We are all Georgians? How corny is that??

And no asshole, NEVER say you speak for me.

How to conduct foreign policy in time of conflict:

Get out a list of our allies and see if any of them is among the combatants. If anyone's listed, they are 100% right and the other guys are war criminals. Accordingly, we "strongly condemn" whatever the other guys did and we beat our breasts that it will not stand, blah-blah. Beauty is we don't need to waste valuable time learning any facts, plus if we are curious we just ask our ally what happened and adopt his version as definitive one. Even if he is major wacko. I know I speak for every poster here when I say that today we are all wackos.

I am not Georgian, I am an American trying to keep our family afloat in a sinking economy. And no McCain, living on your wife's millions, you cannot ever speak for me because you are clueless of what we are going through out here. Damn wrinkly OLD warmonger!