GEORGIA CHESS: McCain Falls into Saakashvili’s Trap
13 August 2008 2:11 pm by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
Mr.
Experience just got played, so did the American puditocracy that seems to be stuck on stupid. Yesterday, John McCain was all…
“My friends, today the killing goes on and aggression goes on. Yet,
I know from speaking this morning to the President of Georgia, Misha Saakashvili,
who I’ve known for many years, that he knows that the thoughts and the prayers
and support of the American people are with that brave little nation as they
struggle today for their freedom and independence. And he wanted me to say
thank you to you, to give you his heartfelt thanks for the support of the
American people for this tiny little democracy far away from the United States
of America. And I told him that I know I speak for every American
when I say to him, today, we are all Georgians.”
His team was so proud that the word went out among his supporters, hailing the statment as the gold standard on presidential wannabes.
We are understandably on the side of pro western Georgia, but are we really “all Georgians?” This is inherently ricidulous and the kind of language that gets us caught in traps McCain stepped in. Yglesias and Jonathan Chait got into this nagging detail earlier this week. If we are indeed Georgians, which we absolutely are not, wouldn’t we be arming and ready to unload on Russia right now? McCain’s language is neocon stupid on parade.
Saakashvili is as media savvy as it comes and regardless of his pro western
tilt, the neocons will embrace this guy because he fits nicely into their “3:00
a.m. in the morning” challenge to Barack Obama. However, McCain never thinks
a step ahead. He’s a plodder. Saakashvili knows this and set up a trap. Today
he pulled it shut.
Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili on Wednesday called for John McCain
and other American leaders to do more for Georgia in their response to the
conflict in his country.“Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, ‘We are all Georgians
now,’” Saakashvili said on CNN’s American Morning. “Well,
very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it’s
time to pass from this. From words to deeds.”
Okay, Mr. Experience, over to you, babe. John? Anything?
Speak up, I’m not quite hearing you now.
I would guess Obama and his team thought at least this far ahead. Start off
with rattling rhetoric and sooner of later you have to put up or shut up, which
is pretty hard to do considering we only have one president at a time and we are not all Georgians.
McCain’s favorite neocon and Georgia
lobbyist, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, which
his partner is still raking in, chimed in:
McCain’s foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann told reporters on
the campaign plane Tuesday that McCain’s remark “obviously
meant a lot to Saakashvili personally, but more importantly the message it
conveyed to the Georgian people in this really, time of unprecedented national
emergency.” Scheunemann said McCain and Saakashvili are friends
who have speaking daily throughout the crisis.
Again, what is McCain prepared to do about it? Saakashvili pressed:
But Saakashvili said action is more important than rhetoric in the face
of “brutal” and “deliberate” Russian violence. He
urged the United States to take the lead in installing an international peacekeeping
force.“We should realize what is at stake here for Americans,” he said.
“America is losing the whole region.”“What Americans should do know, first of all, clearly make
known their intentions,” he said.
Point to Saakashvili.
