The hopped-up geezer and the brother from outer space

Tonight I watched the coverage of the Russia-Georgia conflict on the News Hour and it was very interesting, but the most striking thing was seeing McCain say, “We’re all Georgians now.” Meaning—what? An attack by Russia on Georgia is tantamount to an attack by Russia on the United States, requiring that we declare war on Russia, invade her, and conquer her? McCain will be 72 years old this month, he’s been in the House and Senate for a generation, yet he talks like some brainless hothead. The man is devoid of any intellectual process. Here is his modus operandi. He has certain sentiments and impulses, and he has a big ego, and he gloms on to an occasional “cause,” typically a very bad cause such as campaign finance reform or the legalization of all illegal aliens, and he pushes it with all his might as though the fate of the country depended on it, making himself look heroic and important by the importance he attributes to that issue. Could there be a prospective president less thoughtful, more incurious than Busherino? With McCain, we’re looking at him.

The News Hour also showed Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, making a statement about the Russia-Georgia situation. Seeing him dressed in casual clothes instead of his usual suit, I suddenly realized whom he resembles, and I’m surprised no one has made the comparison before: Joe Morton as the benign Negro alien in John Sayles’s 1984 movie The Brother from Another Planet.

Update: Here, thanks to Geoffrey from Connecticut, is Obama as I see him:

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A reader writes:

He didn’t appear like a hothead, there was a low-key tiredness to saying “We’re all Georgians now.”

Boris S. writes:

Your response to McCain’s statement “we are all Georgians now” is unfair. You interpret it to mean that McCain is advocating military intervention against Russia, but no one, not McCain nor even the most hawkish mainstream commentator has made an explicit argument that we should attack Russia. There is no reason not to interpret McCain straightforwardly: as expressing deep sympathy for a small democratic nation victimized by what he and many others see as Russian thuggery, and a willingness to help Georgia in ways other than military intervention. One could argue to what extent Georgia has brought this crisis on itself, but this is not the issue.

Your website has some excellent commentary and innovative arguments, but in this instance you are trivializing the position of your opponents.

LA replies:

Well, to me, the statement coming from a would-be president, “We are all Georgians now,” means much more than, “We feel for you.” It connotes complete spiritual and functional solidarity and identification with Georgia, a readiness to share its fate.

At the height of the Cold War, when President Kennedy went to Berlin and said, “I am a Berliner,” the U.S. had made it clear to the Soviets that the U.S. was prepared to go to war, even nuclear war, if the Soviets made a move on West Berlin. Drawing that deterrent line in the sand was necessary because the USSR was seeking not only to swallow up the free people of West Berlin, but to establish hegemony over Western Europe. Is Russian hegemony over Georgia a threat equal to the USSR swallowing up West Berlin and gaining hegemony over western Europe, and thus an equal reason for the U.S. to go to war with Russia over Georgia? No. And is the U.S. remotely prepared or willing or to go to war with Russia over Georgia? Again the answer is no. Therefore “We are all Georgians now” is the irresponsible statement of a hothead.

LA continues:

In my reply to Boris S., I neglected to mention the definitive proof of my statement that McCain’s intention is to commit the U.S. to go to war with Russia to defend Georgia: McCain (supported by the Randolph Hearst-like New York Post) calls for the immediate admission of Georgia into NATO, which would mean that the U.S. would be formally obligated to treat an attack on Georgia the same as an attack on the U.S.

August 17

Niles H. writes:

How did Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ever get the idea he could prevail in South Ossetia against Russia? How could he have missed or disregarded the signs that Putin was spoiling for this fight? Did he really think the US would rush in and support his fight against Moscow? Where did Saakashvili ever get the idea that the US would step in?

He got the idea by listening to John McCain. McCain regularly threatens to kick Russia out of the Group of Eight, and said in March, “Rather than tolerate Russia’s nuclear blackmail or cyber attacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible.” McCain’s major foreign policy speech given March of this year advocated isolating Russia to such a degree that a second Cold War would certainly result. And while the Georgian President was listening to McCain, McCain had been listening to Randy Scheunemann, former employee of the Georgia government as well as McCain’s chief foreign policy advisor. Until March of this year, Scheunemann, a McCain confidant of many years, was paid regular sums to influence the US and other allies to come to Georgia’s aid in battles similar to the one that rages between Russia and Georgia today. It is quite Ironic that America views McCain as better at foreign policy than Obama. McCain has no foreign policy other than to do what his lobbyists tell him to do.

It must be noted that a harder line against Russia is probably a good idea, probably inevitable, but such a path must be pursued cautiously, and is too serious a policy judgment to be treated as campaign fodder. Anti-Russia rhetoric has become a staple in McCain’s stump speech, an attempt to draw a distinction between him and Obama. I’m not sure if American voters were paying much attention, but the President of Georgia certainly was. President Saakashvili’s foolish taunts serve to remind us the real consequences of McCain’s “get tough” talk.

visit:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/46982.html
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iG-8I87S5w4QP8CPIrx2wh8irqmgD92HH3M00
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/08/12/the-united-states-shares-the-blame-for-the-russia-georgia-crisis.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/us/politics/14mccain.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080812_georgia_war_a_neocon_election_ploy/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121842762192729075.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/08/10/mccain_aides_georgian_ties_bec.html
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/09/mccain/
http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/08/08/how-would-mccain-mediate/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-05-20-mccainadviser_n.htm
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000594
http://www.dmailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/9/16183/70040

August 19

Spencer Warren writes:

You write this with great perception:

The man is devoid of any intellectual process. Here is his modus operandi. He has certain sentiments and impulses, and he has a big ego, and he gloms on to an occasional “cause,” typically a very bad cause such as campaign finance reform or the legalization of all illegal aliens, and he pushes it with all his might as though the fate of the country depended on it, making himself look heroic and important by the importance he attributes to that issue.

Earlier this year, on Hannity and Colmes I believe, former Senator Rick Santorum gave a very similar analysis critical of McCain who, he said, does not analyze issues from any sort of coherent conservative viewpoint, but rather, his gut. This has not prevented Santorum from now endorsing McCain.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 16, 2008 01:10 AM | Send