Home > Election 2008 > Ultimately, McCain Is Impotent

Ultimately, McCain Is Impotent

August 21st, 2008

McCain, like Bush, is reactive when it comes to foreign policy, and reacts in a way that is bellicose and ultimately impotent. You get the clear feeling that McCain, like Bush, if he does anything at all, will push a foreign policy agenda which goes no further than the immediate interests of his patrons, whether they be the energy industry or other lobbyists. Otherwise, he will simply be surprised when various problems like Georgia come along, and deal with them clumsily with braggadocio.

It looks like Russia is going to stay lodged in Georgia after all, and all of McCain’s chest-thumping did nothing to help, and probably only hurt. If Russia in Georgia is still a problem in a month’s time, Obama has a great opening: for all of McCain’s foreign policy “genius,” he is impotent here. What’s the benefit of having McCain in office if all he’ll do is spew impotent bluster? Then there are McCain’s lobbyist issues with Georgia, which, frankly, should be taken advantage of immediately.

Categories: Election 2008 Tags: by
  1. Geoff
    August 21st, 2008 at 12:50 | #1

    If Russia in Georgia is still a problem in a month’s time, Obama has a great opening: for all of McCain’s foreign policy “genius,” he is impotent here. What’s the benefit of having McCain in office if all he’ll do is spew impotent bluster?

    Um, you do realize that McCain still isn’t President yet (although the very latest polls do seem to be moving that way now)? And in a month’s time he still won’t be President yet. So it seems a little silly to hold him responsible for the US response to Russia in Georgia. As of February 2009, you may have a great point, but right now I don’t see it at all.

    What the “chest-thumping” really does is show how as President each man would respond to the crisis. McCain would act positively to stop the aggression. Obama would call the U.N. Security Council to a meeting (so that Russia can exercise its veto?) You may not think McCain’s approach is the right one, but Obama’s is certainly shockingly naive.

  2. Luis
    August 21st, 2008 at 13:48 | #2

    No, McCain is not president. But he acted like he was, saying that he was in daily contact with the president of Georgia, that he was sending his surrogates to the region, and then he rattled his saber some. But my key point is that this supposed foreign-policy “expert” proposed absolutely nothing of substance that could have helped resolve the crisis, and yet his lobbying ties to Georgia and his impotent saber-rattling may well have aggravated the situation–and he did this for no better purpose than to score points in an election campaign.

    You say that McCain would have “acted positively to stop the aggression.” How? With what brigades? Using what means that are not already at his disposal and Bush’s and they are not using? Doing what that any nitwit in office would automatically do? By pushing for Georgia to become a member of NATO? Ask any real expert on the region about how that will fly–talk about naive. Other than that and some tough-talk, all McCain said was to being diplomatic pressure on Georgia, particularly through the U.N., which any president would do–but McCain would be much weaker on this because the U.N. is a body he has dismissed as useless and outdated and that he wants to replace. Obama would be far likelier to get real support there.

    [Edit: this is akin to McCain’s “secret plan” to get Osama bin Laden–he says that he knows how to do it and he’ll get bin Laden, but (a) he won’t tell how because that would be tipping off bin Laden, and (b) he apparently doesn’t think it’s important enough to share with Bush so he can get the secret plan into action right now. In other words, he has no freaking clue and he’s lying. Like the Georgia conflict–he’s pretending to be an expert, but in fact, he’s got zilch on it.]

    Please let me know why you think Obama’s position is naive.

    If McCain wants to act like he’s on top of things and in control of the situation, he pays the price for it as well.

Comments are closed.