The 3 a.m. Phone Call is Real

On Aug. 8, the White House phone did ring, alerting President Bush that Russia had just sent columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers across the internationally recognized border of Georgia (formerly the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia), a tiny, democratic, America-friendly, Western-leaning country.

John McCain condemned Russia and urged her to "immediately and unconditionally cease ... military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory ... The consequences of Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave." McCain urged the U.N. Security Council to meet on the matter, but strengthened the point by adding that the "US should immediately work with the E.U. and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course that it has chosen," and, "We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia's security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation." Later, McCain also urged that the U.S. convene "an emergency meeting of the G-7 foreign ministers" and offered the view that Russia was seeking more than the independence of South Ossetia, but was instead looking to overthrow the democratically elected government of Mikheil Saakashvili. His use of the term G-7 was significant, since it presaged his later call to throw Russia out of the group that has become the G-8. Noting that Georgia is home to the only oil pipeline that feeds Caspian oil to the west outside of Russian territory or control, he warned, "We must remind Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world."

Now that is what you expect a "leader" to do. 

But where was BO?  Absent?  Yep, for several days.  When a crisis happens a leader needs to take immediate action.  Not like W who went to play the guitar with some celebrity while citizens in New Orleans drowned, died of starvation.

WE cannot afford "on the job training" for our leader.



"We cannot go forward until Florida and Michigan are taken care of, otherwise the eventual nominee will not have the legitimacy that I think will haunt us. I can imagine the ads the Republican Party and John McCain will run if we don't figure out how we can count the votes in Michigan and Florida."
Hillary Clinton