In The Blogs

And Speaking of Georgia....

AND SPEAKING OF GEORGIA....Matt Yglesias makes sport today of the fact that within minutes of giving his warmup speech at the GOP convention next week, Dick Cheney will be hustled far, far out of town to visit lovely Azerbaijan. And sure, that's kind of amusing. On the other hand, here's the full itinerary:

Vice President Cheney will travel abroad beginning September 2, 2008. President Bush has asked the Vice President to travel to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy for discussions with these key partners on issues of mutual interest.

Looks to me like Bush thinks Cheney is the perfect guy to get the Cold War started back up. Unless, that is, you can think of any other issue that's of "mutual interest" to those three particular countries. Stay tuned.

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any other issue that's of "mutual interest"

Political asylum?

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Or maybe they're trying to crank up the volume to help McCain now that Iraq is being "time-horizoned" off the table?

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Isn't war with Russia much less likely than war with Iran? Maybe they're just a bunch of idiots who are trying to bluff their way out of their upcoming (and well deserved) irrelevance.

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... any other issue that's of "mutual interest" to those three particular countries.

Pipeline fever, baby. Praise the Lord & pass the ammunition.

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But why is Italy in the itinerary? Because Cheney wants to go on a double-date with the rakish Berlusconi? Probably the only European politician who is more ridiculous than BushCo.

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welcome to MoJo.
hmm. I worry that Sen Obama is really the naif that he comes across as. if so, things could get messy in a hurry.
I know that it is easy to blame BushCo for everything but there are lots of bad people out there.
what if Obama can only deal with Republicans? and falls on his face when dealing with Iran, China, Russia and other nations that could care less about being nice....

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Which three countries?

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*

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Look, Mommy, mhr followed us here! (On behalf of Kevin's Kommenters, let me apologize to our new neighbors for mhr's showing up here, if someone else hasn't already done so.) Do we have to keep him?

mhr writes: According to the irrational, madcap New Left it was the United States that started the original Cold War

Um, please cite which "New Left" writer has made that claim? Thank you.

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"According to the irrational, madcap New Left it was the United States that started the original Cold War."

Hear hear!

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"....get the Cold War started up again."?? This is truly an obtuse observation, premised on some self-hatred of the US. Did the writer happen to notice the Russian invasion of Georgia? I suspect I know which side this author was on in Cold War I, and where he will be in Cold War II. (And Alger Hiss was a spy, really!)

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One wonders whether Cheney plans to meet with any Italians when he visits Italy.

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Kevin, while you're fixing up the site (which I think has a messy appearance), can you just program it to delete any comments that contain the words "I worry that Sen Obama ...." And if the comment contains the words "lifelong Democrat," just block any further comments from the same source, please.

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Just remember, every foreign policy issue benefits the tough warrior candidates of the GOP.

Even imaginary ones that they gin up for their own political benefit.

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ok - since when is Azerbaijan a "key partner"??

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Mother Jones? Why did you do it, man? What's next? HuffPo? Salon? MoveOn? Hope this is just a temporary gig and that you'll soon get back from the edge of the cliff. Be careful, Kevin. But it could be worse. It could be Kos!

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Ethel-to-Tilly: since when is Azerbaijan a "key partner"??

Ever since we figured out that they have oil and gas.

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"...can you just delete any comments that contain the words 'I worry that Sen Obama ....' [and] block any further comments from the same source...."
Don't worry David/NY, we've all lived in the cocoon. :)

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Now Jim, you poseur, at least you didn't claim to be a "lifelong Democrat," so we still get to hear from you. (By the way, the fraudulent use of ellipses in your last comment plainly shows that you're a Republican.)

That was, by the way, just my polite way of saying your comment was classic concern trolling at its most obvious.

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Oh, my apologies, Jim, it was your fraudulent use of brackets that I meant to complain about.

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I love Kevin's writing and followed him daily at Washington Monthly. I'm writing in to say that this is, without a doubt, the ugliest blog I've ever read. Next maybe Mother Jones should hire an actual graphic designer to help them out. This thing is an unreadable train wreck.

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Yeesh, the blog design is truly fugly.

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"'...it was the United States that started the original Cold War'

Um, please cite which "New Left" writer has made that claim? Thank you."
______________

Noam Chomsky? (Is he new?)

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K,

Not about Georgia. Just wanted to day welcome to MoJo. I can't say anthing more than what others have said about you, but I will say that whatever employer you work with I'll follow to read you. The MSM thinks it understands how to conduct a national debate---they should read you. They won't, of course, because they would be ashamed after they experienced what real insight, thoughtful, and reason writing looks like.
Again, welcome to MoJo.

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trashhauler: Noam Chomsky? (Is he new?)

He's not new, but he's hardly a mainstream liberal. He's said and written things which are outside the mainstream but I don't recall where he made that particular assertion. Do you?

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AS a MoJo blogger, I wanted to say two things:
1. I am already enjoying Kevin Drum, whom I had not found before.
2. I wish his fans had the manners of an alley cat and would stop moaning about the physical appearance of this site. [It makes you seem silly and shallow.]

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Man everytime Cheney goes somewhere we end up with a war started or excellerated!
WE told the Georgians that if they blustered and went aggressive against the Russians..we would step up and back them! Ha! Jokes on you.
Am I the only one who heard the Georgian Pres say that the people who attacked them were bad and those that didn't come to help them were worse???
Cheney is going to put the finishing touches on the KBR contract!
If Cheney doesn't have war....he doesn't eat.

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I wish his fans had the manners of an alley cat - Jim Miller.

Jim,
Most of Kevin's fans have the manners of Inkblot, who is not an alley cat. There are some, however, that have the manners of a pit bull, but we put up with them, because, well because we are fairly tolerant people.

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Chaney needs to take his last tax payers plane ride.to make him and bush look stupid. Chaney ,bush,McCain are war mongers .i think that a lot of republican are afraid that Barack is going to take the gravy train they are on that is why they don't want Barack to win.

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If Cheney is going to Italy, he will be checking in with the other Mafia crime bosses. This territorial dispute is one that they will all want to resolve.

"First we take Manhattan,
then we take Berlin" - Leonard Cohen

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"stop moaning about the physical appearance of this site."

It's not ugly, it's too busy, and the busy gets tiresome. There's too many links everywhere and distracting Flash ads. A busy blog letters page should be clean.

The laundry list of other blogs should stay on the main page. No need to beg the reader to go somewhere else.

Hope my critique doesn't seem silly and shallow.

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Why did Georgia attack and kill Russian soldiers at this time? I think McCain would start a war to win an election.

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Actually, Berlusconi has been notably pro-Moscow in the whole to-do over Ossetia, so that makes Cheney's putting it on his itinerary much more intriguing.

Having said that, of course his going to Georgia is inflammatory. Let's see what he says when he gets there, or afterwards.

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On the scene reporter claims Russia started it, not Georgia.
Don't know if he's correct, but it is a possibility to consider: Russia resurgent. It may or may not have anything to do with BushCo. "God invented war to teach Americans geography".
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/08/the-truth-about-1.php

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