Commentators are starting to pick on Barrack Obama’s missteps in his statements regarding the Russian / Georgian war. Obama has issued three statements while on vacation in Hawaii, with the first one being a wishy-washy calling for restraint on all sides, but then taking a grade-school level jab at McCain’s policy because one of his advisors once lobbied on behalf of Georgia (please…). Then he issued another statement blaming Russia for most of the violence, and then he caught up to McCain’s level of rhetoric a few days later.
It took first-term Sen. Barack Obama three tries to get it right. Headed for a vacation in Hawaii, the presumed Democratic candidate for commander in chief issued an even-handed statement, urging restraint by both sides. Later Friday, he again called for mutual restraint but blamed Russia for the fighting. The next day his language finally caught up with toughness of McCain’s.
Obama had a free shot to ‘act’ like a President. Say the right things, advocate a strong position and go forward pushing that position. This was a total free throw–not a single thing he said had to become policy or enforced or, to be honest, have any impact on the situation on the ground in Moscow and Tiblisi. It was a chance for him to, at the very least, act Presidential. He could have said anything–A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G–to show how he stood out on matters of foreign affairs. And when he had this chance, he frittered it away with blandness and petty politics. A policy as sharp as a dull crayon.
Leaders in the Ukraine told the Russians the Black Sea fleet would not be welcome to return to Ukranian waters if they participated in the Georgian operations. Yea, the Ukraine took a tough stance, despite Russian FSB contacts trying to kill their President a few years ago and the same sort of sabre-rattling going on with Soviet Russian armored divisions at their door step. The leaders of the Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia and Latvia flew to Tiblisi at the same time it was being bombed after they called on NATO to “stand up against the spread of imperialist and revisionist policy” by Russia.
And Obama just told everyone to play nice together and one of his aides did a moron trying to drag lobbying into the issue of Georgians, Russians and South Ossetians dying en masse.
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