Most of the world is calling on both Russia and Georgia to show restraint in their current conflict, without attempting to cast one as more of an agressor than the other.

Not Campaign McCain, which has seen both McCain himself and his foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann speak forcefully against Russia and wave aside anyone who points out that Georgia initiated hostilities in South Ossetia. Ken L notes over at Road to Surfdom:

Of course it’s neither here nor there that said Randy Scheunemann was until very recently a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government. These blatant conflicts of interest are simply air-brushed out of existence in Campaign McCain, where there is no room for nuance and the whole world can be dealt with as if it’s the Wild West writ large, complete with goodies and baddies and Marshall John riding in on his white horse to clean up the town, while a claque of shrill wingnuts wave the stars and stripes and sing ‘God Bless America’. And as we all know, Georgia is a peace-loving democracy therefore Russia is defaulting to its old evil empire ways and must be forcibly resisted. ‘Restraint’ is for gutless wimpy Democrats who crave failure and defeat.

McCain sounds very like a man who’s missing those good old Cold War days, doesn’t he? Scary.

For anyone wanting some more background on the whole Georgia conflict, here’s a few batches of links from Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy and Robert Merkel at Larvatus Prodeo.

Categories: ethics & philosophy, Politics, violence

Tags: democracy, elections, mccain