La Russophobe has moved!

You should be automatically redirected in 6 seconds. If not, visit
http://larussophobe.wordpress.com
and update your bookmarks.

Take action now to save Darfur

Monday, July 14, 2008

EDITORIAL: John McCain for President

EDITORIAL

John McCain for President


Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been much in the news of late.

First he stabbed his supporters in the back, spurning a litany of specific promises he'd made in the primary election campaign out of fear they would cost him votes in the general election. The result was that the publisher of the left-wing Daily Kos political blog announced he was withholding a planned $2,000 personal contribution to the campaign. The need to backtrack in this way, of course, is hardly consistent with the Obama narrative that the country adores him.

Then his efforts to collect money to pay off the debts of his former rival Hillary Clinton resulted in embarrassing failure -- and his efforts to convert Clinton supporters even more so. The illusion of Obama has a hold on the nation's imagination took on even more water. It began to become quite clear that the only "change you can believe in" where Obama is concerned is the change in Obama's resume and the value of his book deal contracts that results.

Then there's the fact that Obama doesn't understand what the Joint Chiefs of Staff do, and he thinks the country has 57 states.

That's to say nothing, of course, of the Jeremiah Wright scandal, the Tony Rezko scandal, the Michelle Obama scandal and the Jesse Jackson scandal. It's to say nothing of the Hezbollah scandal, the Fidel Castro scandal and the Kim Jong Il scandal (all of America's most frenzied enemies are equally fervent Obama supporters). It's to say nothing of his appalling, shameful manipulation of his children on national television for crass political motives, and his even more grotesque cowardice when confronted over it. He complains that his family shouldn't be attacked during the campaign, then he puts his children on Access Hollywood to shill for him. How many "oops" moments like this would the country have to endure if he became president? How many would involve the "presidents" of Iran and Russia, hardened American foes seeking to destroy us?

Which brings us to John Sidney McCain.

As we reported last week, the respected British newspaper The Telegraph has picked up McCain's call to eject Russia from the G-8, where it sticks out like a sore thumb. No rational person can articulate any substantive reason why Russia should sit on the G-8 to the exclusion of countries like Brazil and India, which have larger populations, more dynamic economies and far more democratic political systems.

Recent events in Iran, which have seen a barrage of dangerous new missiles being fired by the crazed Islamacist regime in Tehran, proving conclusively the necessity of America's aggressive efforts to install ballistic missile defense systems in Europe. Let's not forget -- John McCain certainly hasn't -- that it is Russia which is arming Iran to the teeth and supplying it with diplomatic cover to aggressively pursue a nuclear weapons program. Having such a nation present in the G-8 fold is quite simply an outrage, and McCain has properly called for Russia's ouster.

Last Friday, a majority of the 15-member U.N. Security Council's members, and a majority of the Council's five veto holders, voted to impose international sanctions in response to the outrageous and bloody assault on democracy now underway in Zimbabwe under the brutal thug Robert Mugabe's iron-fisted rule. But Russia and China, the other two veto holders, blocked any action by the Council. The Associated Press reported:
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad harshly criticized the vetoes, saying "China and Russia have stood with Mugabe against the people of Zimbabwe." Khalilzad said the vote called into question Russia's reliability as a Group of Eight partner because he said it had indicated earlier that it would abstain." The U-turn in the Russian position is particularly surprising and disturbing. Only a few days ago the Russian Federation was supportive of a G8 statement which said, and I quote, 'We express grave concern about the situation in Zimbabwe," he said."
The reason that Russia and China would spit in the eye not only of the people of Zimbabawe but of the U.N. Security Council and the G-8 is obvious: Both nations are afraid of any effort by the U.N. to promote global democracy. Both nations are run by jackbooted thugs who have rigged their elections in exactly the same way Mugabe recently did and who carry out exactly the same barbaric atrocities against civil society that he does. As they see it, Zimbabwe today, Russia and China tomorrow. McCain understands that the time has come to take dramatic action to communicate to the people of Russia that there are severe costs they must pay if they wish to revive the cold war and become, once again, the scourge of democracy in the world.

And Barack Obama doesn't have a clue what to do. He has never selflessly served his country as John McCain has done, nor has he ever held significant executive authority as McCain had in the military. Obama's period of focus on national issues in the U.S. Senate has been woefully, laughably short while McCain has been addressing both domestic and national issues for many, many years. For any rational voter, the choice between these two candidates is quite simply a no-brainer.

And here on this blog, it's even easier. Not only has Obama failed to articulate a single specific action he would take to address dictatorship in Russia, as McCain has repeatedly done, but even if he had the sad fact is that we just couldn't believe him. He flip-flopped on virtually every significant promise he made during the primary election cycle, stabbing his ideological supporters in the back at every turn in order to make hay in the general election. What possible reason would we have to believe he wouldn't do exactly the same thing once he became president?

America, and the world, needs John McCain in 2008 just the way it needed Ronald Reagan in 1980. Sadly, the policies of George Bush towards Russia have often had the sickly echo of Jimmy Carter's appeasement, and Obama would quite likely make things even worse with his total lack of foreign policy chops.

A new iron curtain has descended across the continent, a new Evil Empire looms behind it. Therefore, America must send a new Ronald Reagan into the fray. Our safety, and that of the world, depends upon it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama's top advisor on Russia is Michael McFaul who is hardly a friend of the Putin regime. No, Obama hasn't been loud and vocal on Russia and that's for the obvious reason that like it or not most Americans really don't care that much. We specialists may care, but that makes for very few votes indeed.

Anonymous said...

I would also add that in addition to my above comments the Kremlin is far more nervous about Obama than they are about McCain. They know how to deal with right-wing Republican types, paint them as warmongers, etc., etc. Obama has already defied all of the anti-U.S. propaganda the Kremlin spews about democracy. He's led a low budget, tech savvy, youth oriented campaign to knock off a well funded political establishment figure. For good measure he is a racial minority. All of this is in conventional Kremlin terms not conceivable in America. It also serves as a role model for the Russian opposition. I'm certain that the specter of an Obama victory has the boys in the Kremlin crapping in their pants. They also hate liberal Democrat types because they tend to speak all the time about such annoying concepts as human rights. Frankly, I think the Kremlin is going to be in deep no matter who gets elected.

Kolchak said...

According to Kevin Cyron, he has written his dissertation about The Misconception of Russian Authoritarianism. A complete apologist paper whitewashing the Kremlin's atrocities. I can't believe La Russaphobe has not done a piece on this propaganda hit piece. You can find it on the Russia Blog.

La Russophobe said...

MICHAEL:

All in good time, dear, all in good time. Russia Blog is hardly the most significant thing on our plate.

ANONYMOUS:

JFK had the best and the brightest, he also had the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam. As far as we know, the Kremlin vastly prefers Obama to McCain, perhaps precisely because he believes nothing and will not pursue a liberal agenda. Though that may change when he first sees the haughty contempt of Russian racism up close and personal.

Tower Bolshevik said...

Why would McCain give a damn about racism in Russia if he's head of a very racist imperialistic system: the USA? Remember the 1970's when Carter babbled about "human rights" while arming and funding the white supremacist regime of South Africa?