Originally Posted By gadzuux Below is what I consider an excellent summation of the McCain campaign and the current presidential race. Succinct and smack dab on target. <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/20/ED4812E8OV.DTL" target="_blank">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/...E8OV.DTL</a> This old soldier never learns Robert Scheer, Creators Syndicate Inc. Wednesday, August 20, 2008 The world according to John McCain is one in which America is triumphant at home and abroad thanks to the Bush legacy, rolling to victory internationally and mastering its domestic economic problems. If daily news, like the 10 French soldiers killed by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and the imminent government nationalization of much of the U.S. mortgage-lending industry, would seem to deny such a rosy scenario, then that only shows skeptics lack the courage that sustained McCain as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. There you have it - in a capsule, the McCain campaign for president, an irrational mélange of patriotic swagger and blindness to reality that is proving disturbingly successful with uninformed voters. How else to explain the many millions of Americans who tell pollsters they prefer a continuation of Republican rule when so many of them are losing their homes to foreclosure and the nation is bankrupted by out-of-control military spending? The economy is in a downward spiral, the national debt is at an all-time high, the dollar is an international disgrace, and inflation in July had the steepest rise in 27 years, driven by oil prices fivefold higher than when President Bush invaded the nation with the world's second-largest petroleum reserves. While Mideast oil-rich nations we protect refuse to fully open the oil spigots as payback for our military efforts, McCain celebrates Gen. David Petraeus as his No. 1 hero for "victory" in Iraq. Aside from the reality that victory there is now defined as returning to the level of stability provided by Saddam Hussein, whom the Bush administration admits had nothing to do with the bin Laden-led terrorists, even that goal requires the cooperation of our former sworn enemies, Iran's ayatollahs. Presumably McCain envisions a more favorable outcome for Georgia, to whom he has committed the unqualified support of the United States with his outrageously overreaching statement that "we are all Georgians." If Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had been in contact with the leader of a nation before and after that nation provoked a war, his campaign would be in a shambles. Not so McCain, who is acting as if he is already the elected commander in chief of a reconstituted neoconservative-dominated White House. By contrast, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been reduced to a blustering bystander. (The remainder at link)
Originally Posted By DAR <<Not so McCain, who is acting as if he is already the elected commander in chief>> Yes we don't need Presidential candidates acting as if they already won. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080727/photos_ts_afp/8f619a57f1f7c835a11def83e4a5b83d/" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/...4a5b83d/</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I agree with most of what Scheer says, but to be fair... "If Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had been in contact with the leader of a nation before and after that nation provoked a war, his campaign would be in a shambles." According to Saakashvili, he's been in touch with both McCain and Obama. Saakashvili's no dummy, either. If you notice, he's bending over backwards to say both McCain AND Obama back his position. Then he's covered no matter who wins, and can claim "abandonment" if the new president doesn't follow a policy that essentially says it was all Russia's fault. It was MOSTLY Russia's fault, but Georgia was not entirely blameless either.
Originally Posted By Mr X Dabob, any theories as to WHY Georgia took that first move? I mean, perhaps they expected a lukewarm response..but why risk it? (obviously it blew up in their faces) Talk about awakening a sleeping giant. Russia has been chomping at the bit for an excuse to flex their muscles, seems to me.
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> According to Saakashvili, he's been in touch with both McCain and Obama. Saakashvili's no dummy, either. << Right - he's hedging his bets. But then we go back to my earlier thread - the last scheer column - that lays a trail of breadcrumbs right to the McCain campaign's doorstep. McCain and his advisors have significant inside connections to one former soviet bloc satellite country. And that's the one that suddenly (and inexplicably) provokes the russian military. I'm skeptical of 'coincidences' when it comes to this bunch.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 You know, it's possible that Saakashvili got assurances from Scheunemann that McCain would have Georgia's back, as it were, if the Russians reacted badly (and maybe that's why they thought they could do it), but that hasn't been proven.
Originally Posted By mawnck As soon as I heard that Russia was invading Georgia, my very first thought was "President McCain." Putin just handed him the keys to the White House.
