Month: August 2008

The Veep Buzzzzzzz

Steve Clemons still thinks Obama picking Bayh is likely:

As I reported the other day, Evan Bayh is the favored candidate to find himself on Barack Obama’s ticket. Obama will probably finalize his decision today or tomorrow and then announce his decision as he comes out of his Hawaii vacation.

Lynn Sweet hears other rumors:

I’m just passing on the latest I’m hearing — that Sen. Joe Biden is moving up on the list of potential running mates for presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama. While Obama’s heart may go towards Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine — his head takes him to a more experienced pick, a Sen. Evan Bayh or Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Russia’s Other Neighbors

Hilzoy makes a necessary point:

I also think that allowing Georgia to join NATO, under any circumstances that remotely resemble the present, would make people wonder: are the United States and the other NATO countries really willing to go to war to protect Georgia? And the reason it would make people wonder is that it is not, in fact, even the least bit clear that we would, still less that we should. And that means that admitting Georgia to NATO would badly damage NATO’s status as a credible defensive alliance.

The Scheuneman Factor

Steve Sailer wants to ban lobbyists such as Randy Scheunemann:

My view is that we should treat Americans who have been registered agents for foreign governments the way we treat mob lawyers — as a necessary part of the system, but, in return for the money, they permanently disqualify themselves for important roles in government, other than maybe Mayor of Las Vegas. But nobody else seems to think that way.

I don’t know about that, but WaPo’s story on Georgia paying Scheunemann while he acted as a foreign policy advisor to McCain doesn’t sit well.  Rosa Brooks’s take:

…what did Georgia get in return?

Well, no troops, that’s for sure. But they got Scheunemann’s (expensive) pledge to garner U.S. support for Georgia’s admission to NATO and for its claims to South Ossetia, and his commitment to use his ties to politicians such as McCain to advance Georgia’s causes. McCain has sponsored legislation supporting Georgia’s claims over South Ossetia, an issue on which he was lobbied by Scheunemann’s firm. And as recently as mid-April, Scheunemann was simultaneously taking money from Georgia and actively preparing McCain for supportive calls with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Is it any wonder that Saakashvili concluded that he had the backing of the U.S. Republican power structure when it came to South Ossetia?

Edwards, McCain, Adultery

A lively exchange on Fox News. Sean Hannity’s head explodes, which is always good television at the thought that the same standards applied to Democrats should apply to Republicans. The meltdown happens around the 3:20 mark. Hannity also says that the Vietnamese "did not break [McCain’s] spirit." Actually, they did, using the enhanced interrogation techniques Hannity approves of when used by Americans. McCain attempted suicide and made a taped confession of crimes he didn’t commit after torture was inflicted on him. The torture techniques included beating, stress positions, dietary manipulation, withholding of medical care and solitary confinement – all of which are now used by the Bush-run CIA and were used indiscriminately across all theaters of war by the US after 2001 on Bush’s authorization. McCain’s confession, I might add, says nothing about McCain’s integrity or character, just something about the evil of torture techniques that McCain then acquiesced to when practiced by the CIA in the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

YouTube after the jump:

So, Who Is Reihan Salam?

Razib Khan profiles the boy wonder. I first discovered Reihan by email – as he peppered the Dish with comments and arguments in its earliest days. He is ferociously brilliant and culturally unhinged, a multiculti blend of Taz, Apu and Robin Williams after a long line of coke. I love him and am extremely grateful he whizzed blurrily into my life.

Proving Their Mettle

Judah Grunstein highlights this paragraph by Richard Weitz:

Although Russian defense spending has increased in recent years, analysts remained uncertain about the extent to which the Russian military had experienced genuine improvements in its operational capability given its poor performance in Chechnya, morale problems, and lack of actual combat experience. Russian leaders have now demonstrated that Moscow has both the capacity and the will to use the country’s armed forces to advance Russia’s security goals.

Rove, Rice And Saakashvili

What were they talking about last July? Did Rove meet Saakashvili in Georgia? What has Scheuneman been promising Saakashvili for years – and what message was sent to Georgia after McCain won the nomination? Was Saakashvili goaded into goading Russia for campaign purposes?

These are all questions at this point. But given the record of Cheney and Rove of engineering foreign crises for domestic political purposes, they can’t be dismissed out of hand. We could have simple miscommunication here between a supportive White House and a somewhat excitable Georgian leader. Or we could have something halfway between miscommunication and malevolence. With Rove, you can never be too sure.