Aug 14 2008
Obama Fails Test On Georgia – And His Media Groupies Know It
Update: John McCain eloquently explains his positions on Georgia in an Op Ed today. (H/T RCP) - end update
Junior Senator Obama, still trying to finish his first term in the Senate (and will apparently do so with no legislative accomplishments even though he chaired a subcommittee – that did nothing for two years), has come up woefully short on the Georgia-Russia conflict. In what has to be the irony of ironies, Obama is doing this August what the liberal SurrenderMedia annually complained President George Bush has done every year since 9-11 – he is on vacation in Hawaii and not seen as being serious on one of most disturbing military attacks on a democracy in recent memory.
But what has taken the liberal media by surprise is how John McCain is taking a lead and active role in explaining to Russia the American position:
It was all part of a continuing effort by the McCain campaign to seize on the events overseas to appear presidential and in command on the world stage while at the same time not appearing to be political. At several points today, he emphasized that he had visited Georgia many times and was familiar with the players.
He also said he was sending Mr. Lieberman, of Connecticut, and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to Georgia, as both stood beside him at a flag-bedecked news conference here. All three are members of the Senate Armed Services committee.
Mr. Lieberman is also a former Democrat and was his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000. Now an Independent, he is supporting Mr. McCain, a Republican, for president, and has been traveling with him.
Emphasis mine. Here we see the experience of John McCain and the inexperience of Obama, who can give a speech to adoring German crowds, but is stumbling in the face of naked aggression. McCain has been to Europe and the Middle East too – the difference is he has done it for years representing America. Obama went representing himself – The One.
I also emphasized the fact that one-time Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman from the North East is standing by McCain’s side, along with a well known GOP Senator from the South. The Democrats chased Lieberman from their party for not buying into their Surrendercrat position on Iraq. And since that time it has been Lieberman who was proven right and not those like Obama who wanted to Surrender Iraq to our enemies at any cost.
America can see the difference in the two candidates. Obama is spewing vacuous platitudes about a Kumbayah world while McCain is telling Russia to back off and get their people out of Georgia. He is sending is top allies and friends into the fray to make a point. I think Lieberman is spot on about Obama’s faltering and hesitancy:
“As the Russians move into Georgia as aggressors, and if you read the statements from the beginning, from Senator McCain and Senator Obama, one had a kind of moral neutrality to it,” Mr. Lieberman said Tuesday. “That comes, I think, from inexperience.” He added that Mr. McCain’s statement was “strong and clear” and showed he was ready to be commander in chief from day one.
“We’ve got a real clear choice to make,” Mr. Lieberman added. “And I say it respectfully to Senator Obama because he’s a gifted young man. But he’s not ready to be president on Jan. 20th of 2009.”
It was the same hesitancy and vagueness from the EU and NATO that gave the green light to Russia in the first place (as I noted in my first post on the issue). And you can tell by reading the stories, and how the media is trying to protect Obama by nitpicking McCain on some nonsense about not politicizing foreign policy (anyone remember Iraq?). They can see Obama’s deer-in-the-headlights-syndrome, and they are trying to tap down McCain’s actions as too aggressive – as if wilting like an opossum will stop aggression.
The American people are not going to be impressed by the liberal media’s fainting cries of “reigniting the cold war” – that is what the SurrenderMedia’s response to terrorism has been for years now – try detente with our enemies! These people make things up so often they can’t keep their stories straight, and since they have no convictions outside “everyone else is wrong but me” they don’t even care if they are talking outside both sides of their mouths. If the cold war was back in place with Georgia free and Russia angrily fuming across the border what the hell would be wrong with that! At least there would not be innocent Georgian civilians being killed by true military terrorism.
This Russian invasion was about oil (not our invasion of Iraq). This Russian invasion used ethnic/tribal divisions to create a militancy inside another country – where the minority must live in peace and deal with grievances through legal channels. I sometimes wonder if the Walter Mitty fantasies of the liberal left, where they would love to ignite a revolution against the evil conservatives (if they weren’t so damn scared to fight in the first place) is being played out now? Even Russia invading Georgia (a US ally fostered under Bush) is seen as poking evil America in the eye.
Is Bush Derangement Syndrome going to push the left over the edge where they support Russia’s actions? We shall see.
26 Responses to “Obama Fails Test On Georgia – And His Media Groupies Know It”
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[...] conservative blogs are full of praise for McCain on all things Georgian. I started there, but I’m afraid McCain is playing his hand [...]
Wow .. this from CNN …
This is classic Bush, doing for the country what needs to be done. He realizes he could step in make all the proclamations and use the big stick, but I think he is stepping back and letting us see who should be the next CIC. After all he’s not running for election so why take the lead when he can let his successor show he’s got it? I’m sure he knew Mc Cain would step up because that’s what his personality is and his history has shown, but I’m also sure he’s a little surprised that BHO has been hiding in Hawaii and not even made an attempt to prove he belongs in the big seat. This is the election in a nut shell, and I’m begining to wonder if the DNC will do something crazy and maybe not elect BHO with some hidden arcane rule they’l find in the back pages of their charter? When your media allies start turning against you, with how much they hate the Rep’s, you know you are doomed. The only thing I can think of is they are setting the stage for Hillary in 012???
Wow. You folks never fail to disappoint.
The *current* President is doing absolutely nothing but making tepid speeches about this war, and the freaking SECRETARY OF STATE decided to stay on her vacation until Tuesday of this week — but yet Obama is the one looking bad here? Exactly what is the junior Senator from Illinois supposed to accomplish by cutting his vacation short – when Congress is on vacation?
Directly because of the mess that Bush has gotten us into in Iraq, we can do nothing about Russia right now. Bush knows it, Putin knows it — everybody but you wingnuts know it.
Wingnuts?
So why is a Scots guy, detached from life, in the tank for Obama?
BUSTED!!!!
Good work, Redteam.
Not everything a POTUS does is telegraphed to the press. Obviously, there is a lot happening at the executive branch since the crap hit the spinning blades.
And, although I do not expect BHO to leave HI, it would be a positive to hear comments on his thoughts as the news comes out. McCain is making sure he’s heard. This is truly a 3AM moment for the prospective nominees.
Uhh – yeah. Except that’s not me. I’m 38 and live in Delaware. My grandfather came over from Scotland when he was a baby. Nice try, though.
(In case you’re wondering, Breschau is a character from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman – specifically the storyline “The Season of Mists”, which was published back in… oh, I think 1993. So, while I’ve never actually met anyone else who uses the name, I’m not surprised there is someone.)
And Phil: we *did* hear from Obama. Obviously, you missed it.
He’s the junior Senator from Illinois, he was on vacation, and he took time out to make a statement. And yes Condi Rice, the Secretary of State, and a supposed Russian “expert”, refused to cut her vacation short when a major international incident occurs.
So, you’re fine with the *acting* Secretary of freaking State staying on vacation, and Obama is supposed to… what, fly out to Georgia and beat up the Russians by himself?
And yes, it was a 3AM moment – and McCain decided to take advice from a Georgian lobbyist in his campaign. Oooohhh.. nice judgment there.
And BTW, is there a diplomatic situation anywhere in the world that McCain doesn’t answer with the threat of warfare? What in the name of all that is holy makes him think we are in any state to actually threaten Russia? With what?
breschau: sorry, I accidently left out this quote of yours.
Bresch ,
Just what should Bush do?
I expect Rice was fully engaged while away. And must force be off the table for McCain?
Maybe the old Soviet states need to act in concert with eastern Europe in facing the Russian bear. And what good is the EU and Nato anyway?
Breschau,
Oh, I don’t read Time/CNN. Too liberal. Is the best he can do, write a position paper (or have it written for him), then head off to do more body-surfing? Too busy for a press conference? That hasn’t stopped McCain. He’s getting lots of ‘face’ time out there.
And you quote from ‘Rolling Stone’ that Condi refused to cut her vacation? Yeah, that’s a well-respected world news source. And their source was an obviously uber-liberal blog that only speculated the ‘refusal to cut her vacation’ line because Condi didn’t go to Tbilisi herself, but sent a senior State Department official, which is normal course of action.
Get a life.
Redteam:
breschau: sorry, I accidently left out this quote of yours.
“Oh, and I’m a pathological liar.”
Tell ya what, buddy – you go on believing whatever you want. If your impression of me based upon some random Google is more important than actually addressing the points that I’m making, then hey – knock yourself out.
One question for ya though: how was I able to enlist in the US armed forces back when I was a.. hold on… umm, 13 year old Scot?
Phil:
Fine, take your pick. Honestly, this is what we’ve come down to? I have to make your Google searches for you?
And what exactly is so toxic about being exposed to how the “other side” thinks anyway? Hey, I’m still here after AJ’s “Barack wants to turn the human race into The Matrix” post, so I could think you could actually handle a view eye balls on Time/CNN. (And you do realize that Joe Klein based his entire series of articles about the FISA votes last year upon talking points he got from a GOP congressman, right? His actual objective nature recently has been the cause of many “Hey, did you put the real Joe Klein in a pod?” comments from left-leaning commenters on his blog recently.)
I mean, if I cut out all of the “too conservative” web sites from my Bookmarks list, I certainly couldn’t come here. Hell, AJ is actually praising McCain’s various responses to the Russia/Georgia thing, which is just crazy talk. Yeah – let’s go to war with Russia! Ummm.. with what, exactly? If we can’t put extra brigades into the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area, where we KNOW without a doubt that Al Qaede and Bin Landen are hanging out – what are we doing to threaten Russia with?
“Obama fails test on Georgia”
I think everyone is too hard on ALL politicians. It’s ridiculous to expect even the most intelligent and informed politicians to have an ideal answer for almost every question and excellent memory recall for almost everything.
.
If Obama gets in (and I don’t care if he does or not) I can imagine him putting a stop to the crazy political antics like “Can you please spell potato Mr President?” or “How much is a carton of milk Mr. President?”
Ray
breschau,
Your link only proves AJ’s point. No one has seen Barack since the weekend. No one has heard from him since Mon or Tues. He is noticably missing from the stage. I shouldn’t need to ‘Google’ him to find him.
And I do check out some uber-liberal sites, like Moveon.org and Salon.com. But only when I need a laugh. I get a giggle out of stupid human tricks.
Phil:
“No one has seen Barack since the weekend.”
HE. IS. ON. VACATION.
He made a statement which clearly laid out his views. Now, he’s visiting his mother’s grave, doing some bodysurfing, and generally relaxing – afterall, he has been campaigning non-stop for basically 18 months. What would you like him to do – call a press conference every day this week to let everyone know, “Hey, I still feel the same way I did on Monday. Just checking in to make sure you all know”? Yup – that would be productive.
And yes, McCain has been all over this – making an absolute fool of himself. Now this Georgian conflict is “the first serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War”? Umm, okay – the two Gulf Wars, 9/11, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the al-Aqsa Intifada were… what, exactly?
(Just for a moment, try to imagine it was Obama that made that remark. And then, imagine the howling that would be happening on Fox News for the next two weeks.)
It has been said that Hitler attacked England in part because they got rid of their draft showing a lack of will to fight for their country’s security.
Osama attacked the US because, according to him, the US was soft and did nothing after 1993… and fled a la Black Hawk Down.
Weakness does not keep us safe. We say what we mean and we mean what we say: Don’t mess with America. No apologies.
Good point – you can’t appear weak to your enemies. When we went to Afghanistan, I was fully in favor of it: they had attacked us, and we had a clear mission.
Iraq had neither of those points going for it. I was against it then, I’m against it now. And, because it distracted us from the true battlefield, Afghanistan/Pakistan has deteriorated into its recent and current mess.
And would you like to know a very clear way of looking “weak”? Making threats against another country that you know you can’t back up. I’d really like McCain to, just once, give us an actual, real-world example of what we should do if Russia ignores us. Sure, he’s made plenty of tough, “We can’t put up with this” speeches – but notice that he hasn’t even once gave an example of an actual action he thinks we should do. It’s baseless rhetoric – saber-rattling without a saber.
breschau wrote:
Good point – you can’t appear weak to your enemies. When we went to Afghanistan, I was fully in favor of it: they had attacked us, and we had a clear mission.
.
I realize Afghanistan was a training ground for Al Q’aida, but wasn’t it mostly Saudi nationals and not the Taliban who attacked the U.S.?
Ray
Starting with the pathological liar bit, how does anyone place any credibility on anything you say? Who says you enlisted in the US armed forces when you were 13, or any age for that matter.
Is that supposed to be a serious question?
Yes, how many of the 9/11 terrorists came from Afghanistan or trained in Afghanistan or were Taliban?
Okay, then a serious answer. All al Qaeda operations were directed from their headquarters in Afghanistan which was ruled by the Taliban. So, a correct answer would be that all of the 9/11 terrorists were acting under directions of people in Afghan with the Taliban’s ok no matter what their nationality.
Bresch, you and I both know that the terrorists would have been aided and abetted by Saddam Hussein and they, after having been defeated in Afghan. and Paki., would have left Afghan. and Paki. and thrived in Iraq with Saddam.
It is absurd to think that Saddam was the ONLY dictator in the region who did not want to get wmd’s….especially after he had already used them before. It would have been malfeasance NOT to go after him. You know and I know it.
And Bresch, because I am going to believe you, I think you have a lot of courage. And, because I am going to believe you, thank you for your service to America.
Ray:
“I realize Afghanistan was a training ground for Al Q’aida, but wasn’t it mostly Saudi nationals and not the Taliban who attacked the U.S.?”
Well, yes, actually they were most Saudi nationals. But if anyone on this planet thinks that the US is going to attack Saudi Arabia – then you are immediately disqualified from political discussion. NA GA HA PEN.
(The whole Truther meme about the Bin Laden family flown out of the US right after 9/11 – yeah, whatever.)
The Taliban supported Al Qaeda, and gave comfort to Bin Laden. That was an easy to understand mission – I never had a problem with those orders.
I mean, we didn’t bomb Lockport, NY after the OK city bombings.
ivehadit:
Well, thank you – I really do appreciate it. I actually applied for the Naval Academy in 86, but unfortunately ran into some medical issues (my eyesight ain’t so great). I would’ve liked to have been Ensign Breschau (heh), but it didn’t happen. (I’m fairly certain my father was happy with the “tuition=$0″ concept, but I like to think there was some patriotism in there too.) Throwing a basketball from my knees was a weird test, but I ruled in the shuttle run. When I told my Congressman “I’d like to serve in nuclear submarines” (I had the build for it then – 5-10, 145 lbs), they got very happy about it.
But, consider for a moment – Bin Laden and Saddam working together? Bin Laden = bad guy. Saddam = bad guy. No one questions that. But them working together? They were as religiously opposed as you can get – if the sectarian violence in Iraq after the fall of Saddam didn’t convince you of that, you simply weren’t paying attention.
“It is absurd to think that Saddam was the ONLY dictator in the region who did not want to get wmd’s”
And that’s perfectly fine – I’m sure he did want them, on a grand scale. But, doesn’t the fact that our government told you that he had them, and then couldn’t find a single one – doesn’t that bother you? I mean, you do know he used that as a primary reason for invasion, right? And when it turned out that your leader outright LIED to you – doesn’t that bother you at all?
Breschau,
You failed to recognize Saddam and Zawahiri’s decade long ties. There are records of Saddam supporting Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a precursor organization to al-Qaeda. Zawahiri bright EIJ into al-Qaeda when he joined forces with Bin Laden.
I don’t have to ‘think’ about Saddam working with Islamists, we have recorded proof of it. In fact, Saddam and Zawahiri discussed joint attacks after 9-11. And in 1999 ABC News linked Saddam to al-Qaeda.
If you are as open minded as you claim, then you would change your entire perspective on Iraq based on that mistaken assumption on your part.
I don’t care how you deal with reality, that is your choice and your responsibility. But remember, you cannot have any credibility on a matter you won’t face all the facts on.
AJ:
I’m going to try to keep this short, since my free time over the past week has been frighteningly spare. But, I don’t want to avoid this completely.
First off, if you title a post “The Clear Connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda”, but then it takes you over 2500 words to explain those connections — well, let’s just say your defintion of “clear” is somewhat different than mine.
Now then… let me make sure I understand your points from that long, long post. To sum up: there is no direct connection between Saddam and Bin Laden. But, there have been connections between Saddam (or his people) and some people that now work for/with Bin Laden – specifically this guy Zawahiri, who merged his Egyptian Islamic Jihad group into al-Qaeda back in 1998. And the one piece of evidence that shows contact between Iraq and Zawahiri is a Kurdish daily Kurdistani Nwe, which published a letter on its front page from Saddam.
First, even if I agree that it’s 100% legit — that’s AWFUL thin. One handwritten letter, requesting a meeting? That’s enough to justify an invasion and overthrow of a sovereign country who did not attack us, and did not have the capacity to attack us?
Secondly, let me say – I’m a bit skeptic.
That newspaper is the publication of a Kurdish political party, The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. So, I think we need to consider the source. (And seriously, when I have people on this blog telling me they don’t take anything at face value from the NYT, let’s not be hypocritical and automatically assume the letter MUST be real, since it was published. Would you all refuse to question any report put out by the DNC?)
Secondly, since we already have CIA officers on record confirming that they received orders from Dick Cheney’s office to forge letters tying Saddam to the 9/11 attack — I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to question its authenticity.
I can find nothing online that confirms the letter’s authenticity – if you have a link, AJ, please share.