KCRW's Left Right & Center summary 8.22.08

Most interesting part of the show is Scheer's historical information that Stalin was actually a Georgian, not a Russian. Read the Wikipedia account of Stalin's life. He born in Gori (site of the recent standoff between Georgia and Russia) to an Ossetian father and Georgians mother, and later moved to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. He was raised in church schools and seminary where the Russians tried to impose Russian language and culture on Georgians, so he became a Georgian patriot. Apparently he learned to run a police state from the way the priests ran the seminary. Later he became a revolutionary follower of Lenin in various places in the Caucuses and eventually ended up in Russia. Fascinating stuff. Scheer did not challenge Blankley's assertion that Russia had just invaded another country, and did not talk much about how the Georgians actually started shelling South Ossetia, whose people voted twice not to be part of Georgia, where there were numerous Russian peacekeepers, provoking the Russians to attack them. Russia did take advantage of the opportunity for some macho brutalizing of Georgia to make them pay rather than following the just war principle of proportionality, which is no surprise from those who live by the sword. However after thumbing their nose at the US for a week they do seem to be pulling back. We will see how much autonomy they give the South Ossetians, compared to say the Chechnyans. Scheer suggests that the Russians are being demonized so that neocons and militarists can have a state of war, more military spending as demanded by Blankley, and probably an inevitable result of military adventures being seen as a way to solve the nations problems. Kind of like the legendary orthopedic surgeon who looks at a problem and sees a knee operation. Scheer may be right in the long term, but the short term issue seems to be that Georgia supported the US in the Iraq invasion so the US must now support Georgia in its Ossetian invasion, or at least from the consequences of the Russian reaction to its invasion. Regardless of whether this is a healthy dynamic to make the world peaceful and liveable, we also have the lesson that this is how a shooting in tiny Serbia got the great powers of the time supporting one side or the other to unleash the incredibly destructive World War I. Two bad destructive wars do not make a good one. If Georgia is really a democracy hopefully they will vote out their president who decided to start the conflict. Of course often people will rally around such a leader, and in fact the Republicans are neck and neck with Obama despite the incredibly unpopular Bush administration.

In the meantime Blankley appears to be prepared to declare victory and go home in Iraq, or more accurately to get out when conservatives feel like getting out. Perhaps more accurately, when they feel that getting out won't threaten their being in charge. Not that much different than the Russians in Georgia.

I found Blankley's assertion that bringing up McCain's "how many houses" gaffe would only arouse McCain's "wonderful" anger to be totally unconvincing.

Sorry, my post was truncated. The reasons I find Blankley's assertion to be less than compelling are twofold.

1. The notion that the Rovian acolytes that McCain has surrounded himself with (and who assassinated his character in 2000) would somehow pull their punches, were it not for Obama trying to take advantage of this gaffe is ludicrous. He's already on record as saying Obama puts his own political fortune above the national interest. It'll go lower than that before it's all over, but not because of what Obama does, and Obama going negative may actually give them pause. Not responding is a sign of weakness to these jackals.

2. McCain has a well-documented anger-management issue. Blankley might think this is cute, but a lot of McCain's Senate colleagues, including Republicans, don't want his finger anywhere close to the nuclear trigger. I'm guessing a pretty wide swath of the electorate might not find that an attractive quality in their next President.

Bob states the dismemberment of Kosovo from Serbia was a mistake that fed into our present problem in Georgia. I partly agree - the de facto separation of Kosovo protected human rights, but Western recognition of independence was a huge mistake that paved the way for the Russian action.

Bob said Tony had agreed this position earlier in the broadcast, but Tony had only said that Clinton's military actions to protect Kosovo were bad policy (they weren't). If Tony agrees though that recognizing Kosovo was a mistake, then good for him, and Left and Right trump the Centrist Obama-Biden-McCain position favoring Kosovo recognition.

One fact check - Bob has again repeated that McCain has never worked outside of government. Not quite true:

"Her father, Jim Hensley, owned a Phoenix Anheuser-Busch distributorship that had made him a multimillionaire. He gave his new son-in-law a job as vice president of public relations, but, really, McCain was just biding his time until the right political opportunity came up.

'Jim Hensley didn't care about PR,' said Bill Shover, a former executive with The Arizona Republic who met McCain in 1981. 'When you have the Budweiser franchise, you . . . don't need PR.'

McCain himself acknowledges that he 'fit the bill' of the stereotypical 'upwardly mobile boss' son-in-law who obviously lacks the experience and training typically required for the job he holds.' But he didn't want to let Hensley down, either.

On the political front, McCain reached out to his Capitol Hill mentors and friends for guidance. Cohen put him in touch with veteran political consultant Jay Smith, who advised McCain to discreetly get out and start meeting Arizona VIPs.

His job with Hensley allowed him to do that."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter5.html

So not very impressive private sector resume, but more than nothing. Bob should say that McCain has "virtually no experience" outside of being on the government payroll.

Bob Scheer needs to hand in his liberal, lefty credentials.

The following is a quote from Tony Blankley, in response to Robert Scheer's comparison of our current war in Iraq to that of our war in Vietnam. Italicized words are Blankley's emphasis.

Bob seems so very concerned about demonizing Russia, while he has no problem demonizing the country in which he lives. Somehow Bob finds it much more feasible that Bush and the Republican neocons instigated the Georgian Invasion to secure four more years in the White House than Russia having any imperialistic ambitions. He obviously considers Americans much more demonic than Russians.

Bob calling from Hawaii and asking, "What are we doing here, anywar?" exemplifies the sanctimonious sentiment of those who demonize America. Bob condemns American imperial annexation of Hawaii, yet he has no problem thoroughly enjoying all of the fruits of that annexation.

Please, Bob, I am not saying this is America love it or leave it...just give America the benefit of doubt occasionally instead of coming to convoluted conclusions.

I don't understand the moderator's concerns that Russia will stop cooperating (or lessen cooperation) in areas of mutual interest if we kick them out of G8. Rusiia seems to be motivated only by self interest, and our mutual interest (by definition) qualify as such.