Month: August 2008

Georgia, Bushlashed

A great piece by Fred Kaplan in Slate recalls of all the reckless assurances that Bush had already given the Georgians, as if saying something makes it true:

If the Europeans had let Bush have his way, we would now be obligated by treaty to send troops in Georgia’s defense. That is to say, we would now be in a shooting war with the Russians. Those who might oppose entering such a war would be accused of "weakening our credibility" and "destroying the unity of the Western alliance."

And the over-reach is still going on:

The sad truth is that—in part because the Cold War is over, in part because skyrocketing oil prices have engorged the Russians’ coffers—we have very little leverage over what the Russians do, at least in what they see as their own security sphere. And our top officials only announce this fact loud and clear when they issue ultimatums that go ignored without consequences.

My only fear at this point is that by pointing this out, we may goad the Bushies and neocons into finding some kind of military escalation that would bring in the US. The US has no rational basis to be as committed to Georgia as Russia is; and has very little moral standing to protest an invasion of a sovereign country.

Manzi vs DeLong

Yes, Obama will tax entrepreneurs more. And that’s bad. It’s just that the issues in this campaign – a return to constitutional norms, the end of torture, the avoidance of a hot global war – tend to overshadow concerns about Obama’s fiscal plans. And the massive debt the Republicans have bequeathed us make tax hikes far more defensible, given the total lack of plans to reform entitlements.

Just Asking

Imagine that Bush is a Democrat (not that hard when you consider his fiscal record). Now imagine that a Democratic president had presided over the worst attack on American soil in history, a far stronger Iran on the brink of nukes, and a resurgent, aggressive Russia, willing and able to invade and terrorize a neighboring country in part because the president long believed that its president was a good man, and had looked into his soul.

I think they would have impeached him a few years ago, no? He would be viewed as the Carter to end all Carters. But they are actually arguing that the man who has held no executive power these last seven years is responsible for the triumph of America’s rivals around the world. And they describe everyone who is dismayed at Bush’s Carter impersonation as leftist.

Taking Back The Campaign Nominee

What the Obama campaign has lost sight of, I think, and what it needs to regain control of, is the essential message of his candidacy. After the last eight years, we simply cannot risk a continuation of the same reckless, belligerent, argument-losing, ideological and deceptive foreign policy of the current crew. The damage that neoconservatism has done to America, to the Middle East, to democratic norms, to Israel’s security, to civilized values and fiscal sanity is immense and deep. From his knee-jerk COld War posture over Georgia to his Rovian campaign tactics, McCain is simply too close to this disastrous record to contemplate. McCain’s trigger-happy temperament, shallow understanding of the complexities and passion for military force as the answer to everything is the bigger risk. He is a recipe for more, wider and far more destructive warfare:

What Did We Say?

Hilzoy fumes over the Bush administration reportedly giving "tacit support for a Georgian assault":

I am not saying it’s all our fault. Russia and Georgia are independent actors, and their leaders are responsible for their decisions. But we are also responsible for ours, and if we knowingly encouraged, or even green-lighted, Saakashvili’s actions, that is, to my mind, a piece of idiocy on a par with encouraging the Iraqi Shi’a to revolt after the Gulf War. We should not create expectations we are not prepared to meet.

“A Tax Increase On Anyone Earning More Than $42,000 A Year”

Now the McCain camp knows full well by now that that sentence – spoken, not printed, in the ad – is an outright lie. Such a tax hike is not in Obama’s platform. The basis on which the claim is even made is bogus, as even Fox News has conceded. But McCain pushes a bald lie to give a smidgen of substance to an otherwise entirely personal negative ad.

What do you call a Republican who is happy to lie directly to people’s faces? John W. McCain.