O Goody, Cindy McCain Going to Georgia

Here's something they'll have footage of at the Republican convention to exploit. The sweet, caring, concerned heiress, Cindy McCain, in Georgia, no doubt giving a bottle of hot water to a thirsting baby.

SACRAMENTO -- Cindy McCain, wife of Sen. John McCain, is headed to the Republic of Georgia, where tensions between the government and Russia have sparked international concern and have become an issue on the presidential campaign trail.

It's impossible not to be cynical about John McCain, whose hotheadedness inflamed international tensions a couple weeks ago. Now he's sending Cindy -- through nothing but compassion, of course -- to tenderly minister to the suffering Georgians.

McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker confirmed Cindy McCain is enroute to the nation and said she is visiting as part of the World Food Program. She said she will meet with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and visit with wounded Georgian soldiers.

We can assume the TV cameras will be rolling, humming along. And that there'll be a lot of expert stagecraft: Make sure you get her good side as she shakes the hand of Wounded Georgian Soldier #1 and, over there, #2. Hopefully one of them will shed a tear, we'll get it on tape, put a little soft music to it, run it in slow mo, and that'll be a great film for the convention. Not a dry eye in the place.

It's the First International Crisis -- Ever!

How this for overstating things?

My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression.

That's John McCain on the Georgia/Russia trouble.

I have to agree with him. I can't think of any other serious crises internationally. Not the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda's activities, nothing. I'm just drawing a blank.

I think John McCain needs to simply go for broke. This is the first international crisis we've ever had. Because it's so big it redefines the term.

(Hey, look, he got his trademark "My friends" in there!)

McCain's Interference in Georgia Crisis

It has been stunning, the last few days, with John McCain playacting as President. Obama merely gave a speech in Germany and he was considered presumptuous (that was their phony spin). But McCain has literally thrust himself between the president we already have and an international crisis! He's planning to send his own emissaries! If this isn't presumptuous -- let me end the sentence differently -- it is precisely that.

Even well-meaning supporters of McCain ought to step back, take stock and think about this. This man has gone way beyond a candidate's proper place, to actual interference between warring parties! His bluster may only serve to make matters worse. In his talks 'several times a day' with the president of Georgia, who knows what kind of signals he's sending that would conflict with our country's official stance? It's bizarre.

WaPo: "We talk about how there's only one president at a time, so the idea that you would send your own emissaries and really interfere with the process is remarkable," said Lawrence Korb, a Reagan Defense Department official who now acts as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign. "It's very risky and can send mixed messages to foreign governments. . . . They accused Obama of being presumptuous, but he didn't do anything close to this."

There's a confluence of concerns, including some of McCain's statements in the past about wars that he says are upcoming, about his strident support of wars (Iraq; "Bomb, bomb Iran"), and the general sense that he's simply a shoot-first, ask-questions-later kind of guy. He's already signaled a hard line stance against Russia, which is unwelcome after all we went through in the Cold War years.

It is definitely worth stepping back and asking, Is this really what we want for the next four years? War without end.

McCain's Inept: "Nations Don't Invade Other Nations"

Citizens of Georgia?

A few weeks ago the rightwing squawk machine was cranking out the usual noise, slightly louder and more distorted, when Barack Obama addressed the folks in Germany as fellow "citizens of the world." According to them it's only appropriate to be citizens of the United States. Others out there, they don't count. You can't be a "citizen" of the world, they said.

Now, all of a sudden, John McCain has not just declared himself a Georgian, he has spoken for all of us (!) to say "We're all Georgians." Shouldn't it be like it was a few weeks ago? That we're all Americans? Or are we now all ex-Americans?

It seems like a nice sentiment that McCain was trying to make, although you have to figure it's about 99% politics and 1% sincerity, if that. You got invaded by the Russians; that's not a good thing; we're here with a casserole if you need it.

Now that we're all Georgians, though, maybe the president of Georgia will draft us and we'll be fighting with our fellow Georgians, I don't know. If we've been stripped of American citizenship just like that by our presumptous new president, I'm not too sure what to do!

Have You Seen This Movie Before?

Now that John McCain has assumed (presumed) the office of the presidency, speaking for all of us in his stirring pronouncement -- "We're All Georgians" -- the Georgians want action, not just talk. What will the new Commander in Chief do first? Bomb the Russians, invade with ground forces, maybe launch a nuke? Don't the Russians have weapons of mass destruction? In this case, the answer is obviously yes.

Are you looking for another four years (maybe eight) of battles and warmongers? Then McCain is your man. If we have him for president, we won't all just be Georgians, we'll be Halliburtons.

McCain Copies from Wikipedia

It looks like John McCain's internet lessons are paying off. He's found a never-ending source of information at Wikipedia, simply a matter of cut and paste. At least that's what it looks like, with some great examples at that link from the Wikipedia entry on Georgia and what are supposedly John McCain's own thoughts.

You know who I'm talking about when I say John McCain, right? In case you don't, I have some original research, written in my own words that will introduce him:

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presumptive Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 election.

McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 and became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he nearly lost his life in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. Later that year while on a bombing mission over North Vietnam, he was shot down, badly injured, and captured as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese. He was held from 1967 to 1973, experiencing episodes of torture and refusing an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer; his war wounds would leave him with lifelong physical limitations.

I'm a pretty good writer, aren't I?