Crisis in the Ukraine

Why? As usual Greenwald is spot on. He even used one of my
favorite Kerry Quotes:

Enthusiastic supporters of a wide range of other U.S. interventions in sovereign states, both past and present and in and out of government, are equally righteous in their newfound contempt for invasions – when done by Russia. Secretary of State John Kerry – who stood on the Senate floor in 2002 and voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq because “Saddam Hussein [is] sitting in Baghdad with an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction” and there is “little doubt that Saddam Hussein wants to retain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction”

 

Oh, goodie-goodie.

http://news.msn.com/world/russia-test-fires-icbm-amid-tension-over-ukraine

 

That beloved tough-ass Putin is not so tough:

http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Putin-cools-tensions-in-Ukraine-Kerry-in-Kiev-5286425.php

Stepping back from the brink of war, Vladimir Putin talked tough but cooled tensions in the Ukraine crisis in his first comments since its president fled, saying Tuesday that Russia has no intention "to fight the Ukrainian people" but reserved the right to use force.

As the Russian president held court in his personal residence, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Kiev's fledgling government and Moscow agreed to sit down with NATO.

 

A YouGov poll shows support among Americans for involvement (vague term, I know, blame pollsters, not me) in Ukraine at a snappy 18 percent.

 

I love the idea that the guy who is occupying Crimea is backing down because he hasn't invaded any other parts of Ukraine.

 

Give him time. He'll take Kiev and install his puppet government by the end of the month.

 

I doubt if he'll need to roll troops into the Ukraine.

Destableize the nation and crash what's left of the economy by being in the Crimea. Eventually that $18 billion he offered to bail them out looks a lot better than what the West can offer. He gains control via the checkbook.

 

Since most of that aid is really debt forgiveness (Ukraine never pays its gas bill), it's not that appealing an offer.

 

Mayor Rudy Nineeleven was on teevee today on The Amurrikan Network orgasming all over himself over what a tough, decisive, commanding leader Putin is, instead of "That OTHERRR GUY" (eye rolls, snorts, sniggering).

Roody-toot-toot, God Bless America.

 

John Kerry single handedly holding off Russian invasion of Kiev

 

The criticisms, comments, tweets, and posts like this say nothing about the President, but so much about the critics themselves. There is going to be hell to pay at the polls for these reactionary trolls spouting nonsensical putdowns about anything the President does.

One could safely argue that from about 1984 until about 2004 the average independent voter, the great "Middle" of this country, tended to lean slightly rightward on the traditional liberal-conservative two dimensional scale. I have my ideas why, but I'll leave that for another time.

I daresay that has changed drastically over the past ten years, however. On issue after issue -- gay marriage/gay rights, marijuana, income inequality, military adventurism, & immigration to name a few -- the Middle is moving left. Again, the reason why can be debated to eternity, but I think it's becoming very clear this is happening.

While the media is still getting played like a banjo by the tea partying and the war-mongering right, the Middle are disgusted with the comments being made by John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Sarah Palin critical of our President who is trying to lead in the midst of an international crisis. Most people really believe that old saying, "Politics stops at the water's edge." One way you can tell is by skimming the comments of mainstream network news sites when they post such comments on Facebook. The comments are overwhelmingly critical of the President's perennial insta-critics who have no actual proposals of what they might do differently (because they haven't thought about it, all they know is Obama=wrong). The people are ahead of the media on this. The media still plays these comments as if they are a legitimate countervailing foreign policy opinion rather than the platitudes they are.

Graham and McCain might not get kicked out of office for it, but their influence is dwindling every day. America is no longer going for their brand of BS. Again, why can be debated (hint, hint, people haven't forgotten Bush), but when you look at issue polling and some of the anecdotal evidence out there it's pretty hard to argue that it's not happening.

 

PoO, you could have saved time by just pointing out Putin admitted he staged those photo ops. He was trying to get the idiots to believe he's a bad ass. It seems to have worked based on this thread.