short of using nukes, bush is powerless. putin has extended his middle finger and bush has to sit on it and rotate.

The stridency of comments by McCain, Holbrooke, Cheney, Condy, and others demonstrates the total political, diplomatic and military defeat that the Bush policy on Georgia has suffered. All they offer us is more of the same. Reconstruct and rearm Georgia for the next war. Obama is correct that returning to what was there before is another prescription for disaster. The only thing I criticize is that his campaign claims that Obama has been warning about this for months. I cannot remember when Senator Obama has used the word Georgia other than talking about a US state.
The French President Sarkozy acted as President of the European Union, but there is more to this than meets the eye. Remember that de Gaulle refused France to become a member of NATO exactly because he feared that the United States would pull or push NATO into a stupid war. The fact that he got both sides to agree to a cease fire means that the U.S. has lost essentially all credibility and is being replaced by the European Union as a negotiator on the world stage not merely on Russia/Georgia but on Iran as well. The peace agreement between Russia and Georgia will be hammered with the assistance of Europe and the U.S. will stand as a bitcher on the sidelines. Whether this will turn out to be an improvement remains to be seen.

Cheney, Bush, Bolton, the neocons and now McCain think of themselves as men of vision.  Someone needs to tell them that what they call ‘vision’ the sane among us call ‘hallucination.’  There is a marked difference and failure to be able to recognize the difference automatically makes one a candidate for the nut house.

The aforementioned bunch really satisfy the truism that there is a point when repetitive behavior goes from being a habit to a medical diagnosis.

Oh yeah Diamond, that’s a gem! Bolton as “poison dwarf!” You’ve tagged it better than I’ve seen in some time. John InSane is cold war rehash and myopically linked to failure. Bush failure. Cheney failure and ultimately the very treason that has doomed these United States! Well, I’d better link Congress into that treason. BushCo. couldn’t have done squat without the implicit collusion of Amerika’s House of Ill Repute. Congress, where corporate/special interests come to bleed the Amerikan people.
Suckass-vili got the Republic of Georgia terminated for his being a dupe. How sad for Georgians. Maybe Shotgun Dicky will saddle up and ride off into that Georgian sunset and save the day! Yeah and then, maybe not. Amerikan psycho-politics needs serious revision. Revolution? Either way. It will take generations to undo the damage wrought on Amerika by Bush’s stupidity and congressional cowardice.
John InSane as presidential timber is a non-starter. Obama is possibly, the lesser of one evil. Criminy this is America and ‘we the people’ are better than what the two parties offer at present. If the future weren’t hanging by a bare and frayed thread, the November election could be ignored. Maybe it should be ignored. There’s not a lot to be hopeful about. InSane? Obama? Yikes, we are so screwed.

Unlike (far too) many, I never liked or trusted McCain, but now I absolutely loath the man.

He’s a lying fake hypocrite whore. About the only time he’s ever honest, is when he’s ranting like a psycho about war and bombing.

Just as Bush made us look back fondly on Reagan, so too would a President McCain probably make us yearn for the “reasonable” Bush Jr..

The White House, I mean thr actuall building itself, should put out a Restaring Order on this nut.

From the FT article. This is sooo priceless, just because we can visualize EXACTLY how this went down.

“It took four days and a growing chorus of criticism from conservatives before George W. Bush on Monday matched John McCain’s tough stance on Russia. Having on Monday morning again been upstaged by the Republican presidential candidate, who had called for the US administration to come together with its allies in “universal condemnation of Russian aggression” in Georgia, Mr Bush finally followed suit.

In a late afternoon statement following his return from the Olympics in Beijing, Mr Bush accused Russia of a “dramatic and brutal escalation” in Georgia with the aim of overthrowing its “duly-elected government”.

(it’s coming…check it out)

•  “The statement, which was noticeably tougher than the administration’s previous comments on the crisis, followed a phone call on Sunday from Dick Cheney, the vice-president, to Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, in which he said that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered”. “

Yep…it all changed following that phone call from …you guessed it, the real dictator in charge – Dick Chainsaw himself, to Saakashvili in Georgia. Sure would have liked to have heard THAT conversation.

Now of course when this all kicked off, Jr. was off his leash in Beijing, munching on American hot dogs, and just having the time of his life watching sports. So, he was pretty laid back about it all, and following Obama’s lead. (let’s get real here, Georgia started the war by bombing South Ossetia, and Russia responded..what the hell did they THINK was gonna happen?) So GW mumbles that Russia’s response was disproportional (not sure how they were measuring that, since Russia hadn’t moved into Georgia proper, at least not then).

But by then of course, the master Chainsaw is already at the controls. The timing is always such, eh…9/11…Jr is conveniently reading My Pet Goat to a 4th or 5th grade class in Florida..(which is pretty sad, since that should be kindergarten or first grade at the latest,) but Chainsaw is right there, ready to give the STAND DOWN ORDERS, and run the whole disaster.

Well, same here. Cheney gets word that the Russians have responded to the plan he worked out for the Georgians, (with Jr. in Beijing) so he calls Saakashvili, and probably cusses him out for not hammering with full force to begin with, (especially since he’d already sent American NATO power to help) and then arranges to get what, 3000 Georgian Army troops airlifted out of Iraq so they can get back to Georgia to engage in full warfare against the Russians.

Somewhere in between, he contacts Jr and tells him to shut his flippin’ trap, and get his ass back to DC, and not to say another unsupervised word until he gets back. (probably met him at the door of Air Force One and kicked his ass, just for good measure). Then they give Jr. a better statement, (prepared by Addington or John Bolton) and make sure he reads it.
So, Chainsaw has his Navy headed to Iran to initiate THAT war, via a naval blockade of the Persian Gulf, (to which Iran will be forced to respond) and he’s got Russia tied up over here dealing with aggression from Georgia, and that makes it all real convenient, since Russia would be most likely to assist Iran in the US hostilities against it. And there’s China, hosting the Olympics, so they aren’t likely to get involved in either conflict.

Great planning Chainsaw..as usual, Chainsaw does all of the dirt, and in this case, let’s McCain take the credit. Chainsaw doesn’t care, as long as he gets control of those pipelines.

Diamond, I agree with you on John Bolton. He’s not quite as dangerous as Chainsaw Chainey, but only because he hasn’t had the full opportunity to be. He’s a low life despicable thing.

John Bolton is a poison dwarf and a very dangerous man. He had to be appointed to his job of ambassador against the United Nations by Bush because no one would have voted to appoint him. The UN’s lucky he didn’t have it privatized and run by Republican donors they way he wants to run everything else. His answer to any problem is war, war, war and more war.
‘What’s the question? Never mind. I know the answer: war!’ If you study his comments on many topics you’ll see this is his philosophy. He’s a steel fist in a steel glove. Very subtle and extremely intelligent. Not! McCain will be an even bigger disaster for America than Bush has been. After all Bush had Clinton’s surplus to squander: McCain will have nothing in the kitty but a few moths and the smoking ruin of America’s foreign policy to rule over. Obama may not be the messiah but he is your only hope.