There were reports after the Georgia situation blew up that indicated the US had trained Georgian troops a few weeks before Georgia took action against the northern areas sympathetic to Russia. Now Russian leader Vladimir Putin has laid it out for the world:
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the US of provoking the conflict in Georgia, possibly for domestic election purposes.
Mr Putin told CNN US citizens were "in the area" during the conflict over South Ossetia and were "taking direct orders from their leaders".
He said his defence officials had told him the provocation was to benefit one of the US presidential candidates.
I have been a passionate civil libertarian and an independent voter my entire life. At one point I entertained the possibility of voting for John McCain in the upcoming presidential election.
You've got to admire the sheer scale of Cheney's hypocrisy. For a draft dodger to stand up in front of a group of veterans, some of whom may have been tortured, and defend our country's use of "alternative interrogation techniques" takes some serious cojones.
Cheney said the CIA program involved "tough customers and and tough interrogations," but said the information obtained from prisoners prevented attacks and saved American lives.
I loved Hillary's response yesterday to McCain's ads and their attempt to use her words (not to mention one of her supposed former supporters) to divide Democrats.
McCain's tactics remind me of 2004, when the Republicans had so little confidence in W, despite all his advantages (incumbency, fundraising, "war-presidentness"), that they actually started funding Nader's candidacy to siphon off votes from Kerry.
I just spotted an interesting story by Zachary Roth on TPM Muckraker.
Roth attempts to link a Newsweek report from the weekend wherein it is revealed that the FBI recorded a phone conversation from Stevens asking Cheney to help influence lawmakers to support a pipeline project that VECO exec. Bill Allen wanted. Roth quotes Newsweek:
Two days later, Newsweek notes, Cheney sent a letter to Alaska lawmakers urging them to pass the bill. Stevens told Newsweek that Cheney's letter had been sent at his urging.
John McCain has boasted that he knows how to win wars. Since he has chosen to make his military prowess a central part of his campaign, it can be exposed for the empty, dangerous bluster that it is with one simple slogan.
It is a senseless policy, apparently meant to intimidate Russia, but why? For the sake of perpetuating international tension so as to strengthen the forces that with Cheney and Bush have been promoting constitutionally unaccountable executive rule in the United States?"
The art of analyzing international affairs is somewhat like discovering new planets. The astronomer notes the behaviors of observable objects; when those objects behave in a manner that other observable phenomena can't explain, the astronomer begins hypothesizing what unseen phenomena may be present whose gravity could have produced an otherwise irrational event.
It should be written down as a political law of cause and effect.
Cheney Effect Noun CHAY-nee êf-ECT
Security of a president's status from onslaught of opponants seeking his removal and/or psychopaths seeking to do him harm, resulting from the alternative being an even worse scenario.
I'm wishing for the former, but I thought I should bring up the possibility of the latter, as unlikely as it may be. (Although Tom Eagleton didn't have any real slips on the McGovern campaign trail per se; he'd just had electroshock therapy when younger. Meanwhile, Biden comes up with new zingers like "Barack Americans", which gives me little hope...)
By the way, this will probably be one's last diary that evokes Biden's past much. (Cf. this comment from my diary yesterday, noting that people were not being very honest in the poll about whether Biden should be VP.) But as we all hope that Joe doesn't use his Joementum in a self-destructive way that could hurt others too, let's ask about the NON-conscious reasons that Barack may have picked Bi to be his partner.
Short diary -- more of an announcement and a call for assistance. I'll keep it all above the fold.
Call to action: A man with two hunting rifles and two pistols was arrested in the Denver hotel where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was staying today. Combined with the UUC shooting by the disturbed individual who'd been reading Savage, and O'Reilly and the murder of Arkansas Democratic Chair Bill Gwatney, a disturbing trend of violence is emerging. Help ePluribus Media gather additional information on this.
The AP-sanctioned hit job by Ron Fournier offended me. I wasn't offended by Fournier acting like Dana Milbank and presenting "analysis" masquerading as journalism. That's them just doing what they do. What offended me was how cavalier they have become about insulting our intelligence.
Fournier's whole "point" in his "analysis" was that picking Biden as his running mate demonstrated a "lack of confidence" by Obama. Never mind there is not a whit of "evidence" to support this "observation" by a guy who, like Jeff Gannon, "poses" as a "journalist." Let's just say the last time someone reported peering into another person's soul things didn't turn out the way they predicted.
What galls me most is how the news media likes to pretend the past doesn't exist or that we don't remember it. For the media whores who think we don't remember, let me lead you by the hand down memory lane. Let's look at what "respected journalists" said the last time a candidate picked a "seasoned" running mate for his "gravitas" as you so delicately put it.
[cue "Morning" music from Grieg's Peer Gynt]
It was the dawn of a new century, and Dick Cheney was the man of the hour...
After reading the Fournier hit piece on Biden, I thought about what might Fournier have said about Dick Cheney. Well compare. First today where he states that
The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden pick is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.
Cheney brings the ticket a wealth of foreign policy experience and political stature - traits that Bush, a two-term Texas governor, lacks himself. He is a bridge between Bush and his father, former President Bush, who put Cheney in his Cabinet and promoted him for his son's ticket
This differnece in tone is striking. The need for some extra experience is the same, but the tone of saying something profoud? What. A. Hack.
One of the primary reason that this nation finds itself in the dire condition that we currently face, is that we’re extremely sloppy and less than precise in our political rhetoric. One example of that is how we fall all over ourselves in an attempt to honor John McCain as a military hero.
I guess he has no choice. Like W. McCain has always believed war and force are major and viable options to face down an enemy, any enemy, really, whether real or imagined. Indeed, Pat Buchanan of all people said Dick Cheney seems like Ghandi when compared to where McCain stands on the use of force. This is a rather horrifying notion. Certainly the last thing the United States needs is another war monger President and reckless, perilous and irresponsible cowboy diplomacy.
Check out the chilling clip where Pat Buchanan made his alarming observation. (This clip was posted by another diarist previously.)
Endless wars will most certainly require a military draft.
I just happened to pick up my little local paper here in Central PA and a small Page 3 column outlines that our friends in the White House have somehow misplaced/lost/deleted/crashed a boat load of emails dating back to 2003.
Oh my my! What will they do now, as Rove is getting closer to plopping his behind in front of the Judiciary Committee. Claim that someone shredded the last 8 years of Presidential memos?
When I went to Pennsylvania to canvas for Obama before the primary, Tim Kaine spoke to us at the Wilkes-Barre headquarters. I had very much liked his speech in response to Bush's 2006 SOTUS, in which he laid out a better way for our future, and he did not disappoint that morning. He had us all fired up to go out and brave the rural Pennsy electorate.
Governor Kaine is a very intelligent and engaging man. He is not boring. He does not have baggage. He has run a state. He has not had to cast votes in Congress that the Republican spin machine can cast in a bad light. He, too, went to Harvard, which does not have a weird, God help us, Skull and Crossbonessecret society, but has a positive, uplifting open atmosphere that emphasizes learning and solutions, not the macabre. Heaven knows, we've had enough of secrecy and death under this administration, and we are gasping for a breath of fresh air and change.
