Lame Duckery and Its Apologists

Up until recently I was really worried Bush would pull off a midnight bombing of Iran as he walked out the door and threw the keys to the White House in the toilet so he could imagine Michelle and Obama hunting all over the place when they couldn't find them under the mat. But after Georgia I realized that lame duckery cuts both ways--its not something that Bush is experiencing personally, though if ever a guy looked like he was drinking away the last days until he clears out his desk its Bush--it is an interregnum, a vaccuum, into which all kinds of political shit is going to flow. Watching McCain whack the table with his shoe in the last few days makes me realize that any one of our enemies with a lick of sense is going to get their hits in now, before they can be sure that a new President Obama will be on the scene. Its the exact opposite of this conservative wet dream, commented on at Tapped:

At The Corner, Andy McCarthy not so subtly implies that the Russia-Georgia conflict is Obama's fault:
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I suppose if we are thinking about turning our country over to the second Carter term — or the first McGovern — it shouldn't surprise anyone to see Russia go into its Afghanistan mode ... or Czechoslovakia ... or Hungary ... or (as Roger reminds us) Georgia.


No, we shouldn't be surprised to see Russia doing its thing. Because Russia realizes that the best time to act politicaly in its own interest is when there's nobody home at the White House, the drunken fool is on the road, and all our troops are occupied elsewhere. If this were all about Obama they'd have waited a few months. But they know as well as the sane people that its not until we can withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan that the US will ever have the flexibility to do more than wave its arms and shout "hey! knock that off!" to countries as big as Russia or, hell, as small as Georgia. We've got nothing left in reserve. This obvious fact seems to have escaped Bush and Co. and all their supporters who have already switched into the pathetic, high pitched whining mode that made them such a pleasure to deal with under Clinton. Nothing is ever their fault and everyone just hates them anyway. Why is that?

But on a lighter note I don't actually think it has escaped much of the voting public. I just don't see middle america turning out to vote for not just four more years and four more wars but an infinite number of times getting to see John McCain get all red and angry 'n stuff.

My new yard sign is going to look like this:

Iraq? Iran? Afghanistan? Russia? Who *Doesn't* McCain want to bomb?

aimai