Monday, August 11, 2008

BILL RICHARDSON, BARACK OBAMA

Bill Richardson, Making Obama Look Good on Georgia By Comparison

Bill Richardson's name hasn't come up as Obama's running mate in a while, and I can't help but think that answers like this one is part of the reason:

Richardson: "My view is that the United States — if we had a stronger relationship with Russia, we could exercise strong diplomacy to stop this effort against Georgia. We should immediately go to the United Nations Security Council, condemn Russia's action, and then get the Security Council to pass a strong resolution getting the Russians to show some restraint, and possibly at the same time generate some U.N. peacekeeping troops. The problem, though, is that we don't have the kind of influence and strength in our relationship with Russia to persuade them. This has been one of the failures of the Bush administration, failing to build a strong relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia, so we'd have the kind of influence to persuade them to stop some of these very, very dangerous efforts within their territory."

Where to begin? Bush is simultaneously bashed for his foolish "I looked into his eyes" comment from early 2001, and yet is also simultaneously not friendly enough to Putin. Who has that kind of influence with Russia? Ask the Chechens if President Clinton was influential in persuading Russians to show some restraint.

Finally "within their territory?" The whole outrage is that Russia is crossing the border.

Richardson also repeated that McCain's "campaign is run by lobbyists that represent Georgia." By that standard, Samantha Power, one of the 300 foreign policy advisers who called Hillary "a monster", runs Obama's campaign. Again, Obama surrogates skip over any effort to explain why Randy Scheunermann's fully disclosed former work as a lobbyist for the government of a democratic U.S. ally is a bad thing.

Oddly enough, you know who had a somewhat better answer, or who at least avoided suggesting that Putin could be deterred from smashing his neighbors if we were nicer to him? Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

08/11 10:10 AMShare