Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Now that John McCain and his Neoconservative shadow government are bent on reigniting the cold war – if not a full-fledged confrontation – with Russia, a nuclear superpower by the way, I thought it would be timely to repost Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films video from earlier this year which proved to … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: There was a rather disturbing report in the New York Times last Saturday revealing that campaign aids to John McCain have begun limiting his access to outside advisers out of concern for "his tendency to adopt the last opinion he has heard."  In Loose Style, McCain Leads a Camp Divided – NYTimes.com … Read more

by David Safier A group of us were talking politics the other day when someone said, “You know, if you look at the problems in Clinton’s campaign, it was the men who screwed up every time.” That got me thinking. Clinton was the first woman in history who had a chance to win her party’s … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The past couple of weeks have been "beeg trouble for Moose and Squirrel" (President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice) with the military confrontation between Russia and its former Soviet satellite state, Georgia.  Bush was seen prancing around Beijing, China reliving his cheerleader days by cheering on the U.S. men’s basketball team, and playing grab-ass with the the women’s beach volleyball team.  Secretary Rice, allegedly an expert on Sovietology (although she has yet to demonstrate any expertise on Russia) also was on vacation and could not be disturbed by the confrontation in Georgia.  Think Progress » Rice refuses to ‘interrupt her holidays’ to deal with Georgian conflict.

No worries. Darth Vader (Dick Cheney) was in charge back in Washington.  Dick Cheney and his Neoconservative shop of horrors have been itching for a confrontation with Russia for some time.  It appears that they green lighted the Georgian preemptive strike earlier in the week against Russian CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) Peace Keepers in the breakaway South Ossetia province of Georgia, sent there to protect their pro-Russian population. Georgia’s folly | Otago Daily Times Online (There are conflicting claims of "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" by all sides.  Georgia’s Ethnic Cleansing Lawsuit Against Russia & Troubling Questions About Georgia’s Attack on the South Ossetians There are no "good guys" in this dispute, despite the propaganda in the media). This confrontation was green lighted with the full knowledge that it would provoke a military response from the Russian bear.  The Russian response apparently was "disproportionate" to what the chickenhawk warmongers in Dick Cheney’s Neoconservative shop of horrors anticipated.  (Just like these geniuses failed to anticipate the insurgency in Iraq).

The corporate news media that belatedly confessed to selling Neoconservative propaganda for the war with Iraq jumped to its feet and saluted to sell the Neoconservative propaganda that Russia had invaded Georgia and violated the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation, and is engaging in an unprovoked war of aggression.  (Wait, why does this sound so familiar?  Oh, right.  The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq).  Dick Cheney, with dark foreboding, announced that Russia’s actions "must not go unanswered." Chickenhawk cheerleader William Kristol of the New York Times got so excited about Cheney’s threat of war with Russia that he wet himself on Fox News.

The attempt by Neoconservative pundits like Kristol, the American news media, and American politicians to frame this dispute as a two-dimensional cartoon – an unprovoked attack by the Russian bear on a small hapless victim – are not quite accurate.  Georgia’s Ethnic Cleansing Lawsuit Against Russia & Troubling Questions About Georgia’s Attack on the South Ossetians

Many factors are involved in the present conflict but the central one is straightforward: the majority of the Ossetes living south of the main Caucasus range in Georgia wish to unite with the Ossetes living to the north, in an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation; and the Georgians, regarding South Ossetia as both a legal and an historic part of their national territory, refuse to accept this…

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What remains is an absolute determination not to be defeated by Georgia and not to suffer the humiliation of having to abandon Russia’s South Ossete client state, with everything that this would mean for Russian prestige in other areas. Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin made it clear again and again that if Georgia attacked South Ossetia, Russia would fight. Georgian advocates in the West claimed that Moscow was only bluffing. It wasn’t.

President Bush finally tired of eating Chinese food after four days and returned to Washington on Monday to hold a press conference in which he made some wild assertions that elicited this response from a Pentagon spokesperson: "that comes as news to us."  Reportedly the U.S. had been warning Georgia for months not to react to any perceived Russian provocations. Georgia does not act militarily without the assent of Washington.  Georgia is a de facto U.S. protectorate. The sudden apparent shift in policy is a strong indication that Dick Cheney’s Neoconservative shop of horrors may be working outside of official government channels again.

Which raises the question whether Neoconservatives within the Bush administration are manipulating American foreign policy in coordination with the campaign strategy of Neoconservatives within the McCain campaign?  Inquiring minds want to know.  McCain had been using cold warrior rhetoric against Russia throughout his campaign that struck many reporters as oddly out of place – until now.  Events of the past couple of weeks bear a striking resemblance to a "wag the dog" scenario.  Note how quickly the McMedia used these events to revive the meme that this a "3:00 a.m." moment (ignoring the fact that the current occupant of the White House responded in his typical Hurricane Katrina like fashion by not interrupting his vacation). 

If you listen to the McMedia coverage you might be confused into believing that John McCain is the current occupant of the White House.  The McMedia assures us that John McCain is "acting presidential" by laying out his policy of what he will do to Russia for the Georgia conflict.  McCain invoked the specter of 9/11 by declaring that "we are all Georgians now." Then we witnessed the spectacle of Georgia’s President Saakashvili making a direct televised appeal to Senator McCain, rather than to President Bush.  Reports of Bush’s untimely irrelevance are premature, however.

Note to the McMedia: this country has only one president at a time, and at the moment that is George W. Bush.  We have only one foreign policy, and politics stop at our shores.  We speak with one voice to the world.  If a Democrat was doing what McCain is doing the McMedia would be crucifying him or her for usurping the authority of the president and injecting domestic politics into U.S. foreign policy during a crisis.  He or she would be labeled "presumptuous and arrogant" and accused of "treason" by Republicans.  But the McMedia’s favorite son John McCain gets a pass while they attempt to paint Barack Obama as weak for exercising proper judgment with his restrained comments on Georgia.

If you’re a Huffington Post reader you may have noticed a new section called Off The Bus. Their goal: to encourage citizen reporters to weigh in with election news from all 50 states. Well, southern AZ., meet your citizen reporter. As one of the Off The Bus reporters I’ll be contributing pieces to Huff Post … Read more

by David Safier Hey Poo-tin, you big Rooskie bear, here’s a taste of a good ol’ American knuckle sandwich with plenty o’ McCain mustard on it! You got some larnin’ to do about the code of the west, fellah. You tangle with mah partner in Georgia, you gonna find yourself tanglin’ with me — me … Read more