Speaking for myself, I think by now we've had plenty of happy talk at the Democratic National Convention. The American public is not in a good mood; it thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction; and it's fed up to ^HERE with dysfunctional and corrupt government. Americans probably can tolerate only so much uplift coming from any group of politicians.

No, convention speakers needn't bother to tell us that George Bush has been a godawful president. Everybody gets that who's been awake during any of the last 8 years.

What our friends at the DNC might want to explain, in these few days when they've got our attention, is why the current Republican philosophy of governance led to this mess. There are plenty of Americans who have never given it much thought – why a political party that is hostile to government inevitably undermines good government; why a party that seeks at every turn to privatize government can have no clear idea how to govern; why a party that turns instinctively to divisiveness cannot fail to injure a commonwealth; why a party that hands government over to the powerful to despoil can never be trusted to help the rest of us. They might even want to show the public how John McCain has taken part in the Republican train wreck during the last 8 years.

There are plenty of Americans, too, who don't really know much about John McCain's temperament – his fits of anger, his impulsiveness, his bellicosity, his mendacity. Some don't realize how profoundly ignorant and misinformed John McCain is about foreign affairs and about domestic issues. Many of the public may be only vaguely aware of how privileged a life John McCain has led, or how out of touch he is from ordinary Americans' experiences. A fair number of people "know" the myth the news media have peddled for years about John McCain, and little else.

You might want to remedy that by giving us less uplift and more actual straight talk about what the next 4 years would hold under Republican governance. Now would be a good time to do that.

A big tip of the hat to aspiring VP (and real estate expert) Mitt Romney for pitching in yesterday to help prolong the national discussion about John McCain's four seven eight ten superabundance of homes. Showing the kind of political acumen that made him stand out on the campaign trail this year, Mittens brought his insight about the houses flap straight to reporters.

Speaking to reporters at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Romney said that while McCain deserved his houses because of the "hard work" of himself and his family, "Barack Obama got a special deal from a convicted felon."

Nearly all the dozen or so homes were bought by Cindy McCain, who inherited her fortune. Obama by contrast bought his one house from what he earned from the books he wrote; he got a "special deal" on his house from nobody, felon or otherwise.

"I think it was a strange thing for Barack Obama to seize upon," Romney said. "If homes is going to be the topic of discussion that Barack Obama is going to end up on the short end of that one."

It's been working out so poorly for Obama that McCain went on Leno the previous day to explain why he can't remember how many homes he owns (hint: it involves the fact he was once a POW).

"The truth is the first casualty of the new politics practiced by the Obama campaign," Romney added.

No, Mitt, your vice presidential hopes are.

In a bold leap forward in his nationalistic rhetoric, John McCain yesterday warned the World to get off America's lawn. Addressing the American Legion Convention in Phoenix, McCain complained about Barack Obama's Berlin speech of last month. Obama had declared that by working together the nations of the world could more effectively address international terrorism and other problems we face in common. You'd have thought that was pretty uncontroversial, but you wouldn't have reckoned with John McCain's slick presidential team. It decided that what Americans want to see is more confrontation with the rest of the globe, in the guise of "leadership". It turns out that America also wants to be reminded yet again that McCain was once a POW.

From McCain's speech:

My opponent had the chance to express such confidence in America, when he delivered a much anticipated address in Berlin. He was the picture of confidence, in some ways. But confidence in oneself and confidence in one's country are not the same. And in that speech, Senator Obama left an important point unclear. He suggested that the end of the Cold War proved that there was, "no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." Now I missed a few years of the Cold War, as the guest of one of our adversaries, but as I recall the world was deeply divided during the Cold War -- between the side of freedom and the side of tyranny. The Cold War ended not because the world stood "as one," but because the great democracies came together, bound together by sustained and decisive American leadership.

Steve Benen wonders "Why would a man running to be Leader of the Free World publicly reject the notion of international cooperation on global challenges?"

McCain seems to have gotten Obama's speech backwards. Obama talked about taking on global challenges -- counter-terrorism, global warming, counter-proliferation, the international drug trade -- and encouraging Europeans to join with the United States because, "No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them."

[...] As Obama described it, encouraging our allies to follow our lead ultimately serves our interests, and the interests of free people around the globe.

McCain perceives this as lacking "confidence in America." I'm afraid today's bizarre criticism says more about McCain's twisted worldview than Obama's faith in American strength.

'Bizarre' is one word for McCain's hyper-nationalistic chest-thumping. He went on in his speech to insist that oppressed people around the world "do not resent or resist America's democratic influence in the world". Nope, no resentment at all - especially not in the neocon proving ground for exporting democracy, Iraq.

Below the fold is the speech that Gloria Craven just delivered at the Democratic National Convention. It was a speech from the heart by one of the millions of Americans who has been harmed by George Bush's economy. The pundits who inhabit the bubble of Washington DC ought to pay heed to what she has to say. This is why so many ordinary Americans are completely fed up with Republican rule.

Please take the poll at the end. This is the classic question for judging the mood of the electorate in a presidential election year.

I know, can you imagine the CIA - lying to the public? This lie, like so many others during the last 6 years, was promulgated to save the White House further embarrassment over its rush to war in Iraq. The lie concerns a high-ranking Iraqi defector whom the Bush administration prefers to pretend it knows little about.

Few things are more laughable than Republicans pontificating about vice presidential picks, maybe because their own bench is so weak. On Saturday John McCain strongly praised Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden, describing it as "wise". Meanwhile McCain was releasing an attack ad demanding to know why Obama hadn't chosen Hillary Clinton instead. Which leads me quickly to my thesis: These Republicans are goofballs.

Case in point is Tim Pawlenty. After reciting the threadbare GOP talking points about how disappointed they all are by Obama's selection of Biden, Pawlenty topped the list off with this ornament to stupidity (h/t Matt at Think Progress):

Pawlenty said he believed Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, would have been a better choice for Obama. "He's an outstanding leader and somebody who would better represent the mainstream of the country," Pawlenty said.

In other words, to hell with military regulations that prohibit active duty officers from campaigning for or holding partisan political office. To hell as well with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who wrote an open letter this spring reiterating the policy that "the U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways".

Pawlenty's call to politicize the military did not just come out of the blue, however. Republicans have been gibbering for the last year about wanting to nominate Gen. Petraeus for high office. This spring McCain was forced to apologize after he used Petraeus' photo in a fundraising letter. But even then McCain's campaign still wasn't finished dragging Petraeus into the presidential race. Just last week we learned:

People close to the [McCain] campaign also floated a wild-card choice, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq. They said it was not beyond the realm of possibility that Mr. McCain would ask him to join the ticket, although General Petraeus has no experience in elective government and has said repeatedly that he is not interested in the vice presidency.

One adviser characterized General Petraeus, who presided over a recent reduction of violence in Iraq, as more of a wish-list candidate for Mr. McCain, who, like the general, long supported sending additional troops to quell the insurgency. The adviser said the campaign was putting forth his name in part in a bid for attention at a time when Senator Barack Obama’s choice of running mate, which is to be announced in the next few days, was dominating the media.

In other words, the demands of the news cycle practically require Republicans to politicize the military. For the GOP an Army general is just a pawn in political game-playing. No wonder poor Tim Pawlenty figured that it made just as much sense to insert Gen. Petraeus into contention on the Democratic side of things as well. There was no sense to begin with, so what difference did it make?

Setting aside the damage being done to the military by the Republicans' creepy stalking of Petraeus, it also looks pretty foolish politically:

• Politicizing the military is one of the surest ways of demonstrating that a McCain presidency would mean a continuation of George Bush's policies.
• McCain claims he's expert in foreign and military affairs, especially Iraq. His campaign also insists that Obama chose Biden to fill in a gap in such expertise. By that logic, doesn't McCain's continued obsession with Petraeus suggest that he's lacking in the very expertise his campaign is based upon?
• Republicans have acted for two years as if all hopes for success in Iraq depend upon the military genius of this one man. To hear John McCain talk, Gen. Petraeus is practically the reincarnation of Alexander the Great. Now it turns out that he's not essential to victory after all, and his time can be put to better use back in the US on the campaign trail.
• For months the Republican rallying cry has been that Obama has too little experience in Washington. But hark, David Petraeus is at hand. Who ever said anything about the need for political experience, anyhow?

Even with several months' time to prepare some VP talking points, McCain's campaign still can't turn out anything coherent.

The GOP has a Long Record of concern trolling when it comes to Democrats. The reason it's invested so much effort in these Childish Antics is that the traditional media almost always fall for them. There are few people they'd rather put on air than a Republican who'll express Deep Disillusionment with what Those Liberals are doing.

A sub-specialty of this game is GOP Fake Outrage™, or concern trolling married with High Dudgeon. It's what you and I call Low Comedy.

You can count on Republicans to serve up ample portions of Fake Outrage™ this week at the Democratic National Convention. It's not as if they're eager to talk about the GOP Standard Bearer, after all. What the Outrage will turn out to be is Anybody's Guess, however, because Any Nonsense will do. In fact, it has to be nonsense otherwise there can be No Ranting about it.

Maybe we can put our heads together and guess the Fake Outrage™ in advance before the GOP rolls it out. Here are Some Possibilities that occur to me, off the cuff:

• The Obamas use their children as Political Props at the Convention
• The Obamas fail to introduce Their Children to America
• Protestors outside the DNC are ill-kempt, ill-fed, or Ill-Mannered
• Congressional spouse wears plain band aid to protect Actual Cut
• Too many Dark Skinned speakers are heard from
• Lights Dimmed during playing of national anthem
• Convention floor feed briefly interrupted for Fox News
• Chinese-made trinket pinned on lapel Slightly Askew
• Lights not dimmed during playing of National Anthem
• At the Big Tent, bloggers are Less Than Polite to some interloper
• Bill Clinton is obliged to speak for Less Than Ninety Minutes
• Bill Clinton is introduced as President Bill Clinton
• Overexposed radio personality believes vociferously his Freedom of Speech was impinged by DNC floor rules
• Nominee's children seen drinking Orange Juice

Well, that's about all I've got. What about you, have any predictions about which Fake Outrage™ we'll all Spend the Week discussing?

As expected, Republicans didn't waste a moment before launching the full concern troll attack on Obama's selection of a running mate. No matter who was chosen, they would have professed concern that they know much better than Democrats who the Democratic nominees should have been.

In this case the goal is to sow discord among Democrats by riling supporters of Hillary Clinton. Here's Rudy Giuliani concern trolling this morning on ABC:

"You almost have to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid [Clinton] as the vice presidential pick of the party."

How touching that Republicans care to interfere offer us advice.

McCain is so concerned that the Democratic ticket isn't as strong as he'd like that he spent his own money on an attack ad to make the case belatedly for Clinton. McCain even claims to know Obama's thinking in the matter. Surprising for a man so confused he can't even remember how many homes he owns, that McCain has such precise insight into his rival's thoughts.

Ad's narrator: "She won millions of votes - but isn't on his ticket. Why? For speaking the truth, on his plans...The truth hurt, and Obama didn't like it."

Actually, as David Axelrod explained this morning, the reason Obama made the choice he did is that "he felt Senator Biden would be the best fit for him". Odd that the McCain campaign didn't bother to ask first what basis the Democrat had used. Even odder that Republicans are so concerned about helping to improve the Democratic ticket.

And oddest of all in that the ad ascribes Truth to whatever opinions Hillary Clinton expressed about her rivals for the presidency. Because Clinton is highly critical of McCain:

Clinton’s team immediately dubbed the ad misleading. "Hillary Clinton's support of Barack Obama is pretty clear,” said Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand. “She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq, and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn't. It's interesting how those remarks didn't make it into his ad."

I guess we're all deeply concerned about the research and writing skills of the Republican attack machine. At some other time in the future, maybe, we can suggest the people they ought to have hired instead of the bums they've got. For now, why don't we content ourselves with helping the GOP to select John McCain's running mate?

Last November, as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton said that she'd be happy to have Joe Biden as her running mate.

I would consider Joe Biden for anything," Clinton said. "He's a friend of mine, he's a wonderful senator. I'm one of Joe's biggest fans."

Today Clinton praised Barack Obama's VP choice, saying Biden is "an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant". If there's any sense at all in political debate in this country, the nomination of Biden ought to put an end effectively to complaints that Obama is short on experience. It's the only consistent criticism of Obama that I've heard this year from truly persuadable voters.

Biden's nomination also will make it difficult for Clinton's supporters to feel aggrieved that she wasn't chosen instead. All along her candidacy was based on claims of (a) experience, and (b) expertise. Joe Biden has more of both than Hillary Clinton does, as even her more ardent supporters would have to admit. If you believe that the choice of a vice president should just be a question of merit, as many Clinton supporters have been arguing, then the selection of Joe Biden is highly merited.

That won't preclude a few PUMAs from continuing to nurse their grudges. Extremists aren't amenable to reason. But Biden's nomination will show their complaints to be ridiculous, in the extreme.

Since the nation is in the midst of John McCain's 'housing crisis', in which he tries to remember how many houses he owns, and we're all still trying to figure out why McCain thinks an income of $5,000,000/year is needed to be considered rich, it's worth revisiting McCain's opinion about the value of wages. In 2006 at an AFL-CIO convention, when asked about the effect of immigration in depressing wages, McCain declared that no Americans would be willing to do agricultural work for as little as $50/hour. At that rate, a worker would make as much in 6 months as the average annual household income in the US.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain’s job offer.

“I’ll take it!” one man shouted.

McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. “You can’t do it, my friends.”

Some in the crowd said they didn’t appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

A fake jobs program - the only kind Republicans favor. That's more than arrogant. McCain is totally out of touch with the realities of working Americans.

I'd love for voters to ask McCain at townhalls this summer and fall whether he still thinks nobody's willing to work for as little as $50/hour.

Update [2008-8-21 22:9:0 by smintheus]: Here is a transcript of McCain's remarks to AFL-CIO workers in April 2006, from the audio (h/t skids):

John McCain: "I don't think I need to tell you that there are jobs that Americans will not do. I don't think I have to tell you that there are ... the backbone of our economy...

Audience members: "Pay them the right wages."

John McCain: "You know I've heard that statement before. Now, my friends, I'll offer anybody here fifty dollars an hour if you'll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for the whole season. So, ok, sign up! Ok, when you sign up, you sign up, and you'll be there for the whole season, the whole season, ok, not just one day. Because you can't do it, my friend."

John McCain's foreign 'policy' problem is that he doesn't really have a policy. What he has are several tics, or gut reactions, that keep getting played out on the world stage. When you look at the sum of what he advocates, it amounts to a vague, incoherent, contradictory, self-defeating mish mash of reactions against things McCain doesn't like. Almost entirely negative, his foreign 'policy' offers very little that is forward looking. At best, he identifies a few things he doesn't want to see happen. It's not surprising that somebody who tries to build 'policy' on a crumbly foundation of gut reactions - very much as George Bush himself - comes across frequently as rash. A McCain presidency would be dangerous not just because he shoots from the hip, but because that's a symptom of a deeper problem: He has no clear idea what he wants to achieve. He has no method, no meaningful goal, and thus no path to get there.

A coherent foreign policy doesn't necessarily require elaboration in lengthy tracts aimed toward policy wonks. It just requires coherence...that is, it needs to be backed up by thought until national interests, goals, and methods are brought into line. Typically, you can tell that thinking is clear when it can be summarized. So for example this is the core of a coherent foreign policy.

Avoid foreign entanglements.

Clearly that's not a policy McCain embraces; perhaps one he doesn't even comprehend, given his desperate desire to enroll Georgia in NATO while it's enmeshed in war.

In any case, McCain has never clearly enunciated his foreign policy either in whole or in part. For example, anybody who's paid attention over the years to his many strange and contradictory pronouncements about Iraq, going back to McCain's determination since 2001 to promote an invasion, is left with the uncomfortable feeling that he has only the vaguest idea what he stands for and why, what his goals are and how to achieve them. He wants 'victory' and he's against 'defeat' in Iraq; that's about the extent of his ruminations. His Strategy for Victory in Iraq, though no doubt burnished by his campaign staff, is reactive and negative at best:

It would be a grave mistake to leave before Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated and before a competent, trained, and capable Iraqi security force is in place and operating effectively. We must help the Government of Iraq battle those who provoke sectarian tensions and promote a civil war that could destabilize the Middle East. Iraq must not become a failed state, a haven for terrorists, or a pawn of Iran...The best way to secure long-term peace and security is to establish a stable, prosperous, and democratic state in Iraq that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists.

More than 5 years into this war and McCain is still talking on the level of magical ponies. When pressed for serious answers about the intractable problems, he camouflages his vacuity in rambling appeals to support the troops and such not. He numbs the mind in the hopes that listeners won't notice that he can't put together national interests, goals, and methods in a coherent Iraq policy.

The underlying problem with McCain's foreign 'policy' has been so glaring for so long with regard to Iraq that I'd almost stopped noticing it. However the war in Georgia has really brought it into sharp relief in a very short span of time. McCain has nothing like a coherent policy. He hasn't tried to align realistic interests, goals, and methods. Instead, his positions have been almost entirely reactive and negative. They're governed mostly by what he dislikes - in this case, Russia and Vladimir Putin. It's a classic demonstration of how McCain makes 'policy' by shooting from the hip.

And once again, McCain was wrong as events showed. He wanted the US and NATO to take the toughest (im)possible line against Russia to the point of confrontation. His gut hatred of Russia/Putin simply blinded him to Russia's frequently expressed interest (i) in keeping NATO away from its doorstep and out of the Caucasus, and (ii) in reversing a series of humiliations at the hands of Bush, particularly (iii) in making a counter-example of the US intevention in Kosovo. That's a lot to ignore. With his blinkered and reactive view of the conflict, McCain couldn't see that a likely outcome of the fighting would be that Russia would lay off Georgia once it had humiliated Saakashvili. Instead, McCain could only see Hitler on the move. It was all about 'Defense of the West' vs 'appeasement' as far as he was concerned. So he staked out an impossibly bellicose position and was left high and dry when the tawdry little war sputtered out more or less as realistic observers anticipated.

Indeed for more than a week McCain's bellicose position consistently and perversely ran afoul of absolutely basic facts. From the moment the Russians counter-attacked in South Ossetia, McCain has been acting as if he were president - calling Mikheil Saakashvili daily, announcing that Americans are all Georgians, even sending his own personal envoys to meddle in affairs he has little say in. McCain has also been pushing aggressively for a confrontational policy. He's hinted repeatedly that he might insert US and NATO troops into the conflict on behalf of Georgia. Yet neither NATO nor the US is in any position to get troops there quickly, even if we wished to. McCain blamed the fighting entirely on Russia, failing to acknowledge that the Georgians started it. McCain has lavished praise on Saakashvili for his leadership and moderation, though the Georgian President obviously began the conflict with the intention of dragging the US in as his ally. Indeed this interview with Saakashvili, conducted on the eve of the war, shows that the propaganda McCain subsequently adopted had been prepared for him in Georgia before Saakashvili sent the troops in:

In this conversation, with fullscale war just 2 hours away, the Georgian president insists that his country does not seek conflict with Russia. He appears to understand the stakes involved, acknowledging that Russia’s population is 30 times larger than Georgia’s and that any Georgian attempt to reclaim one of the separatist regions would mean opening a war against Russia itself.

But at the same time, in this interview, Saakashvili is openly contemptuous of his counterparts in Russia. “You know them and their corruption,” he says; “you can imagine what horrible consequences there would be if we followed their political and economic model.” He says he cannot imagine the West not coming to Georgia’s aid. It would be like the betrayal of Hungary in 1956 or the then Czechoslovakia in 1968, when the Soviet Union’s aggressive repression of restive satellites was met with silence from the West.

Does America's interest really involve seeking a military confrontation with Russia by aligning ourselves so closely with Georgia's as to equate our interests? Is the US able to achieve what Georgia might wish, and if so at what cost? Once involved, can the US disentangle itself if affairs in the Caucasus spiral out of control? These are questions that McCain never seems to have asked himself in his headlong embrace (as a mere candidate) of yet another potential quagmire.

This August 13 NPR interview highlights the shallowness of McCain's thinking as he blathers about what the Georgian war means for his foreign policy views. There's just nothing here but gut feelings stated and restated. Notice too that McCain even repeats as fact the assumption that the Russian attack was about controlling the oil pipeline running through Georgia. The idea had been thoroughly discredited by that time, if only because the Russians made no move to seize the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

RENEE MONTAGNE: Russia's president did order an end to Russian military operations there. To the degree that that is in effect, and to the degree that peace talks are in motion, how much did statements from the West make a difference here? Because there is an argument that they didn't make much difference at all, that Russia had its own agenda, and it came and went as it pleased in Georgia.

JOHN MCCAIN: Well, I think, to a large extent, unfortunately, that's the case. They want a friendly country on their border. They want to control the oil pipelines that goes through there. And this is clearly in keeping with the Russian ambitions for the old, near a broad control of or absolute takeover of surrounding countries. And this may be trying to send a message to Ukraine and other countries in the region.

MONTAGNE: Well, there would be those who would say that that message has been sent and heard even beyond the region. What, realistically, could the U.S. in particular do to prevent, as you say, other sorts of influence that the Russians would like to exert in that region?

MCCAIN: Well, I think, in the short term, there is limited options, certainly, that we have. Long term, I think we may be in a period of relations with Russia where we have to make sure that we help our friends, that we do what we can to protect democracies and freedom, and make sure that we understand that there is a new era that obviously began when President Putin took over, and so we will adjust our relations accordingly.

And I don't think that there's going to be a re-ignition of the Cold War; don't get me wrong. I don't think there's going to be nuclear-weapons buildups, et cetera, but I think that Russian behavior is not acceptable. And we will do what we can to maintain our alliances and our friends and make the Russians understand that this kind of behavior is not a part of what we view as the 21st century.

So his European foreign 'policy' amounts to helping friends and protecting democracies and freedom while making sure Russians know we don't like their behavior. I think it's fair to say that's about as deep as McCain ever gets. He offers nothing about broad goals or methods or outcomes. McCain doesn't even have an ideology to fall back upon, to create a framework in which he might conjure a foreign policy.

I suspect that's why McCain fell so easily captive to the neocons during the late 1990s. They at least have (bad) ideas and a coherent set of goals and methods - though thoroughly unworkable ones.

All McCain has going for him, however, is his gut. By 2008 we've all had quite enough of that kind of foreign 'policy'.

Around the time of the first Gulf War in 1991 I attended an unintentionally hilarious meeting of Iraqi exile groups in DC. There was talk in Washington of overthrowing Saddam Hussein via Iraqi exiles, and this meeting had been called to put their differences aside and forge a united strategy toward that goal. A Middle East historian friend and I decided to drive into DC that evening to have a look for ourselves. We wanted to see whether these exiles were still living up to their long established reputation for being bitterly divided and dysfunctional. Overthrowing a government is a pretty big step. Though in no way connected to the policy-making crowd, we figured as citizens we ought to inform ourselves before the US started making definitive moves to bring chaos to Iraq, of all places.

Dozens of exiles showed up from across the spectrum of political groups; my friend remarked that all the usual suspects were in attendance. "This is going to get ugly," he predicted. The agenda lasted for all of a minute or two. Almost as soon as the meeting got under way, it was interrupted by a long and impassioned rant (by a Kurdish exile, if I recall rightly). Another Iraqi jumped up and began slanging off the first guy. The floodgates opened. From every corner of the room came accusations and counter-accusations. The occasional call for unity was shouted down. An Iraqi sitting nearby looked at us nervously, trying to assess how we were taking this in. A moment later he inserted himself into one of the shouting matches. After about 90 minutes of this mayhem we had to flee; it was all we could do to stifle our laughter amidst these zealots.

I was reminded of this episode yesterday by the reaction here to a post about Francis Fukuyama's latest attempt to obscure his history of backing the neocon project to overthrow Hussein. In an op-ed Fukuyama twitted George Bush for legitimizing "regime change" by invading Iraq, without however acknowledging that for years he'd advocated exactly that as a member of PNAC. A suprising number of commenters sprang to his defense. Didn't I know that Fukuyama had broken with the neocons some time ago? Some here are even credulous about his unsupported claim that he came out in opposition to the invasion way back in 2002 - although he's on record as supporting the decision to invade fully two months after the invasion.

It seems that for some on the left, merely expressing regret after the fact for having been proved disastrously wrong (with a healthy dash of historical revisionism) makes up for the years Fukuyama spent advocating for an illegal invasion of a sovereign country. You see it shows that in contrast to the other neocons he's got some sense, don't you know.

Except it doesn't and nothing can. Setting aside Fukuyama's embrace of international lawlessness, what about those Iraqi exiles he backed as the means to replace Hussein? On Sept. 20, 2001 he signed the PNAC Letter to George Bush, which called for Hussein's overthrow "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9/11] attack".

Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a "safe zone" in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means.

By "opposition" PNAC meant the Iraqi exile groups. The letter was issued immediately after 19 hours of talks organized by Paul Wolfowitz to advance the neocon agenda. The meetings were conducted by circumventing the State Department, though Ahmed Chalabi was on hand to advocate for a US invasion to back a takeover by Iraqi exile groups.

There is no excuse for any who signed the 2001 PNAC letter. For more than a decade, any moderately well informed observer in Washington knew that the Iraqi exiles were a bunch of clowns. If the PNAC gang were unaware of their reputation, then the first step should have been to learn more about the exile groups before trying to tie US foreign policy to these jokers. Therefore every single one of these PNAC signatories is on record as a fool or a knave. Nothing any  of them says about foreign policy should ever be taken seriously. And notice that one of these is John McCain's chief adviser on foreign policy. Nobody on the left should be giving any of this gang the benefit of the doubt.

William Kristol, Gary Bauer, Jeffrey Bell, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, Eliot Cohen, Seth Cropsey, Midge Decter, Thomas Donnelly, Aaron Friedberg, Hillel Fradkin, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Jeffrey Gedmin, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Charles Hill, Bruce P. Jackson, Eli S. Jacobs, Michael Joyce, Donald Kagan, Robert Kagan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer, John Lehman, Clifford May, Richard Perle, Martin Peretz, Norman Podhoretz, Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt, William Schneider, Jr., Richard H. Shultz, Henry Sokolski, Stephen J. Solarz, Vin Weber, Leon Wieseltier, Marshall Wittmann

Francis Fukuyama in the WSJ is trying once again to elide his history as a neocon and retrospectively align himself instead with the critics of everything he once stood for. Turns out he warned a friend, in private, that invading Iraq might not work out so well - he says. This bit is particularly hilarious:

The Bush administration this week rebuked Russia for its disproportionate military intervention in Georgia; many rightly suspect Moscow's real goal is regime change of the pro-Western, democratic government in Tbilisi. But who set the most recent precedent for a big power intervening to change a regime it didn't like, without the sanction of the U.N. Security Council or any other legitimating international body?

Here is Fukuyama 10 years ago in the PNAC Letter to President Bill Clinton on Iraq (PDF).

We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power...

As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat...

In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy...

We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

I wonder how that campaign to ingratiate himself with an Obama administration is going for him?

To his increasing embarrassment, John McCain's aggressive demands for immediate confrontation with Russia in the Caucasus have been left high and dry by Russia's willingness to call a truce once it had humiliated the belligerent Georgian President. Today as he tried to justify his foreign 'policy' adventurism to reporters, John McCain made a rather startling pronouncement. As so often, McCain was taking his cue from his other inept ally, George Bush. Said McCain:

"In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations."

So does that pronouncement disqualify McCain for the presidency? Or just disqualify him to speak about his own 'policy' toward Iraq?

Carl Hulse in the NYT highlights the most glaring weakness of just about the weakest conceivable Vice Presidential contender, Evan Bayh: Bayh worked with John McCain to push hard for an invasion of Iraq and even served as co-chair on the neocon "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq" (joining McCain and Lieberman, the only other sitting Senators in the group).

However the Times also quotes Al From talking up his DLC pal's VP chances. It's a classic example of the thinking of the 'serious' types in DC who fetishize hawkishness.

"The antiwar people cannot define the Democratic Party," said Al From, a founder of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, of which Mr. Bayh was chairman for four years. "I think Evan’s real strength is you get someone on the ticket who has a record of being strong on national security, and that is a very important quality to have."

Because you don't want to reward people who were right. There has to be room at the top for people who were dead wrong about the most important national security debate of our time. Hell, anybody can see that 'wrong' and 'strong' rhyme.

How would the trad media have portrayed Barack Obama if he had behaved as John McCain has done since Georgian President Saakashvili sent troops into South Ossetia? Would it have been 'presumptuous' to issue proposals to intervene in the fighting even before the President had spoken? To stake out an aggressive position far in front of anything the US wished to adopt? To attack a rival candidate for refusing to do the same?

How about if he'd compared the original, impetuous aggressors in this ugly conflict to the victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001? What if he claimed to be able to speak for the nation?

"I told [Saakashvili] that I know I speak for every American when I said to him, today, we are all Georgians."

No. Instead it looks like the term being used in the trad media to describe McCain's every action in regard to Georgia - no matter how ill-advised - is 'prescient'. Here is an example of that famous 'prescience': McCain nominated Saakashvili for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Presumably McCain was able to foresee that in 2008 repeated efforts to convince Saakashvili to keep the peace with Russia would work out so well for everybody.

A veritable Themistocles in his 'prescience', John McCain is. But 'presumptuous'? Not so far, it would seem.

John McCain has myriad conflicts of interest via the many lobbyists who serve as his top campaign staffers and advisers. Leave it to the Wall Street Journal to find a silver lining in what lesser mortals would view simply as corruption as usual.

John McCain's top foreign-policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, is a leading expert on U.S.-allied Georgia -- and was a paid lobbyist for the former Soviet republic until March, in the run-up to what has become a major battle between Georgia and Russia.

Democratic rival Barack Obama's presidential campaign was quick to try to paint Mr. Scheunemann's dual roles as a conflict of interest after Sen. McCain swiftly took Georgia's side in the dispute, and cited it as evidence that Sen. McCain is "ensconced in a lobbyist culture," as Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan told reporters over the weekend.

But given the rapid escalation of the fighting, and the fact that Georgia is being viewed as a victim of its neighbor's aggression, Mr. Scheunemann's ties to the small nation and its pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili may look less like a weakness and more like a strength in the first foreign-policy crisis of the general election campaign.

Nothing evokes strength like depending upon a registered agent of a foreign government.

Nobody outside Georgia tried harder to get the US to rush precipitously into the conflict with Russia than John McCain - even though by Monday he'd retreated to the point of merely urging more diplomatic pressure. His first reactions tell you what kind of president he'd be, however. And clearly he's bellicose in a way that makes even Dick Cheney look like a wuss.

On Friday as soon as fighting broke out McCain put all the blame on Russia and called for the involvement of NATO. His campaign, via Georgian-lobbyist turned foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, also immediately set about politicizing the crisis by trying to use it to score points against Barack Obama.

[Scheunemann] also criticized Obama for calling on both sides to show "restraint," and suggested the Democrat was putting too much blame on the conflict’s clear victim.

Of course Georgia was not merely a "victim" in provoking this crisis, and the only country Obama actually singled out for blame was Russia for invading Georgia's sovereign territory.

"I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis."

But Obama did call for restraint and that was so inexcusable that the McCain campaign has inflated its attack further.

In fact, the initial response from the Obama campaign was characterized by precisely the kind of rhetoric that the leaders of these nations warn against--a meaningless statement that equates the victim with the victimizer by calling on both sides to show restraint. Asking the Georgians to show restraint is like asking the Hungarians to show restraint as Russian tanks rolled into the country in 1956, or for restraint from the students in Prague in 1968.

The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis, so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn't merely raise questions about Senator Obama's judgment--it answers them.

Except that Obama's statements, unlike McCain's, were in fact in sync with the statements of America's allies and of McCain's personal ally, George Bush:

"We urge restraint on all sides — that violence would be curtailed and that direct dialogue could ensue in order to help resolve their differences," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

What's more on Sunday, two days after McCain began denouncing Obama's call for "restraint", Dick Cheney praised Georgia for its "restraint".

"The vice president praised President Saakashvili for his government's restraint, offers of cease-fire, and disengagement of Georgian forces from the zone of conflict in the South Ossetian region of the country," the statement said.

With even the blustering Cheney on board, it looks like just about everybody thought the Georgians needed to show some restraint - except John McCain. That shows the kind of president he'd make.