John McCain has taken many lumps from the liberal and misguided mainstream press during his campaign. But some of the worst criticism has been due to his hawkish statements made about Russia.
With regards to Russia, McCain has called for dropping the nation from the G8 group of world economic leaders. He has also called for a quick expansion of NATO to place nations such as Georgia, which lie directly on the Russian border, under the protective arm of the alliance.
With the invasion of Russian forces which has begun taking place today against the former Soviet Republic, Georgia, it is painfully obvious just who has been out in front on this issue the past year. And even more so, just whom was wrong in their criticism of McCain.
By way of a Salon.com featured article from June 9th [2], we have an interesting perspective back into time, giving us the ability to study the type of criticisms the liberal media used against McCain on this particular issue:
This kind of talk -- in particular the call to oust Russia from the G-8
-- has given pause to seasoned experts on that part of the world, who
tend to emphasize engagement with Russia. McCain's harsh rhetoric and
tough proposals led Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria to write an April column
titled "McCain's Radical Foreign Policy." If McCain were to pursue his
Russia agenda as president, Zakaria wrote, it would be interpreted by
much of the world as an "attempt by Washington to begin a new Cold
War."
Continuing a very old tactic by the MSM, Mark Benjamin went on to place McCain's ideological position under the suspicion of simply being penned by those scary former lobbyist advisers, who obviously only made such proposals, without merit, due to their obvious ulterior motives.
Not so much... The reality of the situation is more like, sometimes people are advisors in a various field (or lobbyists on behalf of certain issues, for that matter) because they are experts at making analysis within those fields!
The article, which in the perspective of such a short matter of history, humorously goes on to read:
During the presidential campaign, the presumptive Republican nominee
has shown remarkable interest in Scheunemann's client, Georgia, a
country of 4 million. In his statement last month on the inauguration
of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, McCain said he hoped the new
president would "take steps to ease tensions with Georgia by reversing
recently announced measures that undermine Georgia's internationally
recognized sovereignty which have rightly caused great concern among
our European allies."McCain might take his hard line on Russia because it plays well with
some of the GOP base. Experts on Russia say some of those Republicans
harbor nostalgia for being tough on the Soviet Union. Or perhaps he
simply believes Russia will respond best to threats. But there is
little doubt that McCain's rhetoric and policies would please the
countries Scheunemann has worked for."Those are countries whose advantage it is to point the finger at a
Russian threat, particularly Georgia," explained Thomas Simons,
ambassador to Poland under George H.W. Bush and to Pakistan under Bill
Clinton.There is no way to tell if Scheunemann has influenced his boss on
behalf of his clients, or if McCain and Scheunemann simply share a
common get-tough-on-Russia philosophy. But when there are lobbyists on
a candidate's campaign staff, it's hard to distinguish chicken from egg
when it comes to policy.
Whatever the reasons behind McCain's hawkish tones, despite how any microanalysis of his position statements may wish to explain how they came about, at the end of the day... they are simply right. And the events that are transpiring today in the Republic of Georgia, simply gives even more credence to the Republican nominee's foreign policy bone fides.
Now we all just sit back and wait for the spectacle of Barack Obama's attempts at standing equal to McCain on foreign policy, within the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Georgia. I'm sure that Vegas would take 2-to-1 odds on Obama making mention of the Georgia republic's capital of "Atlanta".
