And you just have to love the sage advice given to Obama later in the article by that doyenne of political wisdom, Cokie Freaking Roberts:

"I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii, and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place." Ms. Roberts added, "He should be in Myrtle Beach if he’s going to take a vacation at this time."

Wow.

~Russ

I really don't get it. I mean, there's a kernel of a valid story here: the wisdom of Obama choosing to basically sit this week out in the midst of the Crisis in the Caucasus.

But we learn absolutely nothing that everyone doesn't already know. The reporter is on the scene, and he's using warmed-over bullshit from the Sunday morning shows.

And why the fatuous McCain blow job? The reporter can't be angling for access; he's 3,000 miles away.

There must me thousands of eager journalists who'd be overjoyed to cover this historic campaign, especially for a prestigious outlet like the NY friggin Times. Why are the reporters actually covering it such lazy assholes?

Hillary's got her name in the nomination and roll call vote, which will do nothing but distract the Democratic operatives from building some consensus and party unity.

On a bigger scale, people on the street are begining to wonder if Obama can't put a bag on Hillary, how is he going to respond to meetings/negotiations/talks with the freakin' Russians, the Saudis, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Iranians, etc. Guess President Obama has shown us how he would handle conflict. If he can't put Hillary in the weeds, it doesn't say much else for how he would handle old world leaders and their ongoing struggles.

people on the street are begining to wonder if Obama can't put a bag on Hillary, how is he going to respond to meetings/negotiations/talks with the freakin' Russians, the Saudis, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Iranians, etc

Really? What street do you live on? Is your neighborhood suffering from a drug problem?

Maybe Obama knows his voter base has no more interest in events taking place on the other side of the world than he does.

McCain: “We are all Georgians”
Obama: “…now watch this drive”

Exactly:

It's become political wisdom of late to argue that since John McCain has advocated a different policy position than President Bush on the conflict in Georgia, it's a good thing for him. Doubly so because Barack Obama is much closer to Bush's position. Candy Crowley made this point last night on CNN, noting that "what's interesting is that top foreign policy advisers to Obama are arguing that Obama is much closer to George Bush than John McCain is," and then sagely observing "and, as you know, this is a campaign that is trying to tie John McCain and George Bush."

Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, derided Obama on Hardball last night, saying "Senator Obama's program, at the moment, sounds a lot more like another four years of George Bush's present policies." And Mark Halperin wrote on his weekly scorecard that "The Vladmir Putin-backed conflict with Georgia was a three-fer for John McCain: it reminded voters how dangerous the world is, allowed the Republican nominee to distance himself from the more accomodationist Bush administration and let him reinforce his maverick image."

It goes without saying -- or should -- that the reason the Bush administration has been a spectacular failure in foreign policy, and is reviled by voters at home and by people around the world, has absolutely nothing to do with it being accomodationist; it's actually the exact opposite. This is evidence of the mindless political dialogue going on right now: these pundits and reporters have grasped that McCain needs to distance himself from Bush, but without any actual comprehension, it seems, of why he needs to do that -- what policies McCain should be seeking distance from. By being even more dangerously aggressive than even Bush is not a good thing. It's like if a judge told someone to stop acting like a car thief and so he became a bank robber.

As Josh Marshall points out, it's unprecedented for a presidential candidate to be attempting to directly inserting themselves into foreign policy, much less trying to derail the sitting administration (well, overtly anyway - see the Dragon Lady post below).

Say what you will about Obama's political instincts in this case, but McCain has crossed an important line here.

McCain: “We are all Georgians”

So true. Some of us are dead, and more of us are likely to die. Our strategic interests lie in ruins. And our leader is a fucking moron.

John McCain is trying to reinvent the cold war and is totally in the pocket of Saakashvili, even to the point of having Saakashvili's own paid lobbyist on McCain's staff.

McCain is probably violating the law by interfering with US foreign policy with sending two of his staff to Georgia. Even the Washington Post thinks McCain ("Well guess what? There'll be more wars.") is causing trouble and his actions stand a very real chance of involving the USA in a possible military action.

McCain is reckless beyond belief.

(link...)

he can use it to search for his birth certificate instead of just sipping a pina colada, and bitterly clinging to his tire guage.

I bet every banker in Nigeria with an Internet connection loves you.

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You're obviously paralyzed from the neck up.

You just keep payin' that FICA, I've got a couple more boat payments to go.

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