The point is that McCain's knavish comment was completely devoid of meaning or substance.  It was pablum.  It was foolishness that attempted to masquerade as strong, virile anti-communist piffle.  

Why?

Because John McCain has no real answer to the Russia-Georgia conflict.  None.  Nothing. All he has is the most dangerous kind of empty-headed macho waffle.  If he wanted to say something of value, than he could address the real issues that are roiling in this chest-thumping, keep the pipelines open foolishness.  Georgia got whacked.  McCain makes it sound like the British have once again closed Boston Harbor.  It was over the top.  

If McCain wants to say something intelligent about this crisis, we are all ears, but until that point, he should be viciously mocked for everything that he stammers out through that god-awful clenched-teeth smile.

I think Yglesias, like many people now are, is questioning what that moral judgment is worth. Of course our sympathies are with the Georgians, but saying we are with them either means militarily intervention or it means diddly-squat at the end of the day.

Here's the second part of what he said:

"On one level, it’s empty political sloganeering. But on another level it’s not empty — it’s downright irresponsible, and an example of the sort of irresponsible behavior that got us into this. But this stuff isn’t a game — Putin, Shakashvili, the Ossetes and the Abkhaz are all playing for keeps. We shouldn’t imply guarantees that we don’t intend to keep, which means the public statements of our officials have to be driven by realistic assessments of the situation and of American interests not by mawkish sentimentality."

I think the context of this matters, that is, our recent history with Georgia:

www.balloon-juice.com

That makes this "we're with you bro!" shout out kind of offensive, given that they expected us to be literally with them.

I like and admire your writing at TNR, Jonathan. But with all due respect, the question you pose above seems a bit obtuse. There are many things McCain could have said to express both a moral judgment against Russia and "symbolic" support for Georgia that would have stopped far short of what he actually said. He could have said something like: "We sympathize with Georgians for the suffering inflicted on them by Russia's immoral actions. The fighting must stop; we must work to bring about a ceasefire. We must also help Georgians recover from the damage it has caused."

Instead he chose to say, "We *are* Georgians," which, as Yglesias rightly suggests, has much stronger implications. Its clear implications are: "We throw in our lot with Georgians in this conflict. We declare solidarity with them *as if we were their fellow countrymen.* In other words, we accept the same 'citizenly' responsibilities that they bear for defending their country against this particular threat, and that means potentially taking up arms to help them defeat the Russian aggressors."

If McCain does *not* think the US should be prepared to fight Russia over Georgia, then his statement is dangerous empty bluster. And if he truly thought he was just expressing moral opposition to Russia's action, and moral/symbolic support for Georgia, then his inability to calibrate his statement more precisely is downright scary for a presidential candidate.

And why are there two posts on this exact same topic? Because the other one was on the stump?The stump and plank are very similar, since the plank is also "obsessive coverage of the '08 race". The spine is all Marty, and the vine is all trees'n'things, but the stump and plank are the same. And if you aren't going to shunt all the '08 race stuff onto the stump, then I think posters on either should address previous posters' posts as though it were the same blog. because it really is.

In this case, what say you to Crowley's post? This would be interesting to us.

After 9/11 there was the famous Paris headline: "We are all Americans!" McCain was just practicing routine political plagiarism which no one is likely to take very seriously. Moreover, anyone who thought the US was, is, or likely ever will be willing to fight the Russian Army in the Caucasus is deluded, if not psychotic.

George Bush is no more responsible for Georgia's aspiration to join NATO than Bill Clinton was for Poland's, which is to say not at all. Based on past performance, I'd say Yglesius is, exactly, "arguing...that we can't make basic moral judgments." The only "moral judgments" Matt and his ilk seem capable of is deploring the to them obvious fact that Darth Cheney and his pet Dubyah the Wonder Chimp are the worst leadership team since the Hitler/Mussolini crowd.

McCain is trying to score points, that's all.

"...anyone who thought the US was, is, or likely ever will be willing to fight the Russian Army in the Caucasus is deluded..."  And, as we know, delusions never play a role in politics, so our leaders should feel free to speak as recklessly as they want.

"McCain is trying to score points, that's all." Maybe. But then he's politicizing national security for the sake of his campaign. (Not exactly "putting the country first.")

I actually think he believes his own addlepated bluster.

I agree with Robert Powell 100%.  McCain thought talking tough to Russia was the right diplomatic strategy to take and so he took it.  Soft power doesn't always mean soft, gentle words.

"We are all Georgians" need not be empty, just as it need not mean, send in the Marines.  Now is the time for muscular diplomacy that at the very least makes Russia think twice about the wisdom of a confrontational policy.  South Ossetia and Abkhazia are no doubt gone, but we should damned sure be "Georgian" in making Putin wonder if the price is worth what he got for the deal.

"We are all _____" is the foreign policy equivalent of "Your call is very important to us."  

Nevertheless, it's a nice phrase and expresses a nice sentiment.  Bully for McCain.  I don't see why everyone is making a big deal over it.

But with regard to foreign policy, the government -- which is to say, the president, and candidates for president -- ought not be in the business of making moral pronouncements. If the government of the United States expresses a preference, but displays no willingness to act on behalf of that preference, we demonstrate to the bad guys of the world that we're empty talkers. Mere moral bloviation teaches the world to ignore American statements; it conditions our adversaries to the likelihood that we are bluffing.

So from a candidate, statements like "We are all Georgians" are a bad thing. As are statements that something is "unacceptable" or "cannot go unanswered" if we have no plan to answer it and every intention to accept it. In this particular case, Vlad Putin (and no doubt the mullahs in Tehran and the apparatchiks in Beijing) has learned that when the president of the United States says he will not accept something, that means America will in fact accept it; he has learned that when the vice president of the United States says that something cannot go unanswered, America will in fact not answer it; and he has learned that when the Republican candidate for president expresses his solidarity with the victims of Russian aggression, he doesn't mean to do anything about it. That's the kind of lesson we teach when we allow our government to get into the business of making statements of moral preference.  

Now, if Jonathan Chait, private citizen, wants to make morally satisfying, empty claims about solidarity with the Georgian people, that's all fine and good. (One wonders just how many Georgian refugees Mr. Chait plans to host in his home in the coming weeks; were we actually Georgians, in Georgia, we would be opening our homes to refugees, right?) But the government should not be in the business of making statements that do not align with actual or intended actions.

Moral judgment? Lot of good that has done the Sudanese. Or the Tutsis. The point is moral judgements are a dime a dozen. BUT fast tracking Georgia into NATO is a whole different story. An attack on one is an attack on all. Then we would HAVE to send troops to fight. Is this really in our interest any more than Sudan or Rwanda?

As for moral standing, here's a man who's proud of invasions of countries that have provided no offense, although he might argue about the competence of the tactics. From the Russian press point of view, people carrying Russian passports are being attacked. Russia is of course crushing Georgia (remember Grenada?) and will have its way with them. And they will do it no matter what we say because there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.

Actually, moral judgments are what made the world recognize the legitimacy of the government led by the Tutsi rebels after they overthrew the Hutu government so it did do the Tutsi a lot of good.  We'll see how much good it's done for the Darfuris once that's ended.

Rhubarbs: not all action is war, and regardless a government that makes moral pronouncements without acting on them is better than one that neither acts nor judges.  There's also no reason to think that governments make decisions as you describe.  Bush demonstrated his willingness to act on his axis of evil rhetoric and yet neither Iran nor NK were significantly influenced by it.

I understand why Jonathan Chait finds Yglesias' phrase annoying. In and of itself, an expression of solidarity could be interpreted in many ways, some of them positive and inspirational. But Yglesias is right in this case because of the context of John McCain's speech.

The ghosts of Prague Spring and the Kurdish Uprising hang over Georgia. In 1968, Czechoslovakia rose up against the Soviet government partly because President Johnson led Alexander Dubcek to believe that the U.S. would defend them. Iraqi Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein after the Iraqi War because President Bush led them to believe that the U.S. would come to their defense. Both were crushed without a serious U.S. response. Now it appears that Georgia may have taken a number of actions to provoke Russia because President Bush (and, in fairness, the EU) led them to believe that the U.S. would defend them.

It is in this context that we should be alarmed by John McCain's comments: not just "We are all Georgians now," but the whole thrust of his speech, which is to wave the bloody shirt against Russia and call for dramatic yet ambiguous responses to support Georgia. Grand but empty rhetoric encouraged Georgia down the road to disaster. McCain continues that awful and irresponsible tradition by sending the exact same message, as if to say: "fight on, Georgia, the cavalry is on the way!"  He very well knows it isn't.

I confess that I was of two minds about the statement.  The first was, "who cares, he's just being Le Monde"; and the second was - I forget now, but I'm sure there was something more profound lurking in the back of my mind at some point.  And, reading the posts, I was inclined to agree with Rat on the "nice sentiment" point.  Also, it did look like too much of an anti-McCain tirade ...

Having read Rhubs and the article on the main page about Georgia, two thoughts occurred to me.  First, Rhubs, as usual, grasps the essence of the issue and expresses it with characteristic clarity.  My own comment about Le Monde on the other thread is, in this perspective, beside the point; the NY Times could have said, "We are all Georgians", and might well have had some traction, but the expression of the same "sentiment" - and it is a sentiment and nothing more - by a Presidential candidate carries a different weight and has greater import.  After all, Le Monde did not, on 12 September 2001, accede to America's invocation of Article 5 of the NATO treaty; it was the French Government that did so, but it did so only after the invocation ...

Second, I thought about the most important question I always ask myself when faced with a post on TNR in respect of McCain, Obama, world events, or the price of teah in China: WWTS-IOSI.  Oh, sorry: "What would Tep say, if Obama said it?"  Had Obama said, "We are all Georgians now", instead of pouring praise on the adult Obama for his sagacity and humanity, Tep would be pissing all over the statement as BS, "preening and pandering", meaningless moral posture, etc. etc.  It is a pointless but harmless mental exercise on my part, but this way I can recalibrate my own bs-meter from time to time ...

We are at least "all Georgians" in the sense that we've just been delivered a nice, big fat wake-up call from resurgent Russia.

The Russian national character has not changed.  They are recovering from their twenty year "malaise" after the fall of the Soviet Union.  

Russia's long national nightmare is over.  They are back.  they've got money.  They've got nukes.  And the bear is ready for bear.

"We are all Georgians" and our minds are focused wonderously.

Just don't forget China, at our backs.

Would he say that if he was President?

And Icarus is dead right, if Obama said that he'd be killed by the usual suspects on this site. There's too many commentators to mention, but I second everyone who points out that this is a complex regional, ethnic dispute as much as it is a global power play.

I'm with Andrew Sullivan - Obama shouldn't have jumped to agree NATO entry for Georgia.

Today's quote: (h/t Yglesias):

“Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, ‘We are all Georgians now,’” Saakashvili said on CNN’s American Morning. “Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it’s time to pass from this. From words to deeds.”

Nothing I could say about McCain's "symbolic stand of unity" would be quite so eloquent as that.

Simon, you make an important point that going to war with Russia is not the only American action that would be meaningful. I certainly didn't mean to suggest otherwise, and your clarification is well taken.

But so far the United States has taken very little action of any kind in response, other than issuing statements of moral bloviation. A week into the crisis, we can be sure that Russia understands that the United States really, really disapproves of Russia's aggression. As opposed to, what, Wednesday last week, when Putin thought maybe the United States would send the 81st Airborne to join in the invasion? Instead of action, we've had the president give Putin a short talking-to at a sporting event. We've had the president issue a public "stop, or I'll say 'stop' again" ultimatum. We've had both the vice president and the Republican nominee for president calling the Georgian president to give him pep talks.

Meanwhile, several European foreign ministers and heads of state stood bodily next to the Georgian president, which may just have halted the Russian aggression short of regime change in Tblisi. That was action, and it produced positive results.

Of course I wouldn't have the United States go to war with Russia over Georgia. (Or, well, just about anything that doesn't resemble the movie "Red Dawn," actually.) But there are other things the U.S. government could have done, could be doing, to help Georgia and to dissuade Russia from further adventurism. If our government isn't going to _do_ any of those things, if we're not going to take action, then our leaders and their party's nominee to succeed them really should just shut up about it. That's precisely what it means to "speak softly and carry a big stick." You talk when, and only when, you are willing to back your talk with action, in order that others will take you seriously when you do speak.

The problem is not the sentiment McCain expressed. The problem is who expresses it, and what their expression of it does to American credibility in the world.

I understand the Straussian theory that we need a terrible evil enemy to help give meaning to life, but McCain is over reaching, big time, on this. Unless of course there's another Team B lie on the way.

Andrew Sullivan has a great clip of him on TV and has his Churchill envy about right. This man should not be let anywhere near tsharp objects never mind the White House.

As of now, Bush has gone on tv to denounce the Russian action as "inconsistent" with their rhetoric; state that "we stand with the elected Georgian government"; express concern with the apparent Russian cease-fire violation that has moved an armored column south of Gori, essentially cutting Georgia in half; and announced that not only is Condi Rice going to Georgia, but that ships and planes are already en route with "humanitarian supplies".

Now, if we get a ship sunk or a plane shot down by the Russians, we will "all be Georgians".

On the other hand, people who imagine that the US ever gave Georgia assurances that we would support them with military action are deeply ignorant, and any Georgians who believed this to be the case, if indeed there are any such folks, are stupid beyond belief.

Yglesias has an effective response here: yglesias.thinkprogress.org/.../saakashvili_calls_mccains_bluff.php

here's my problem with McCain these days: He's openly running as an aggressive, bellicose pro-conflict presidential candidate, and the longer we go into this campaign, the more he latches onto this platform, knowing he has nothing else except to tarnish Obama's shine through rovian tactics. Shouldn't this be a losing strategy for him in these times? Especially as it's the only time he's ever articulate?

Why isn't Obama or his surrogates wiping him on the floor with this? Where are the ads slamming him on this? Or the talking points?

I've been assuming that his campaign knows what it's doing, becuase they've been doing it so well for so long, but hey, while Obama goes on vacation, do they get to? Because Axelrod and Plouffe must be exhausted. I hope they're taking a little vacation too, and that's why we haven't heard too much from them. Because they need to start going on the attack.

also, McCain is even more, "We're America, we'll save the world!" than Bush. If he is going to have this attitude toward Georgia, what's to say he doesn't have it toward every conflict in the world. America is not the world's savior, we're not comic book heroes here.

I mean wouldn't that make a good ad from Obama? And connect it all to the economy -- A true American hero/president/patriot wants to help Americans at home, not go around the world and clean up everybody else's messes while making things worse here. In an ideal world, it would be great if we could do both, but we can't, blah blah. Show up how much more pragmatic he is than McCain, paint McCain as the hopeless idealist (connect that all to BUsh). 'Cause I think deep down, most Americans do know that what we need right now is somebody pragmatic. Obama is that, but McCain is starting to paint him as "The One," which is in conflict with that message, when really McCain is the unrealistic one.

This was all horribly inarticulate, but I think my point is clear . . .

simon greenwood: "a government that makes moral pronouncements without acting on them is better than one that neither acts nor judges."

But surely the best government is one that calibrates its moral pronouncements -- in a clear-eyed, realistic way -- to the actions it is willing to take.

McCain could easily have done this. There are lots of ways he could have expressed sympathy and symbolic support that did not imply the US was willing to use military force. He didn't. Doesn't that imply either that he hasn't ruled out military force in this instance OR that he's incapable of calibrating his words to his intentions (a serious -- even alarming -- flaw for a potential president.)

Rob't Powell writes, "... any Georgians who believed this to be the case, if indeed there are any such folks, are stupid beyond belief." Couldn't agree more. But the world is full of people who are stupid beyond belief, and a disproportionate number of them seem to find their way into government, so the role of plain stupidity is not to be discounted in explaining world events. (Such as basically the entire history of U.S. foreign policy this decade.)

But the actions the president outlined today are, in part, a good start. Not sure what the point of sending Condi to Georgia now is; the chance for her to do any good with her mere presence ended last weekend, and as far as her actual abilities as a diplomat go, well, there's a reason you don't hear U.S. allies clamoring for the secretary of state to help them with tricky problems these days. But having the military coordinate aid to Georgian civilians is a wise move, and goes a little way toward making up for not having already ordered Navy surface vessels to the Black Sea on Friday.

I hope that an effort will soon be underway to organize a European/North American/Antipodean push to revoke the 2014 Winter Olympics from Russia if Russian troops remain uninvited on any foreign soil by January 2009. (We ought to be rallying Europe's support for kicking Iran out of FIFA while we're at it; excluding Iran from the World Cup is the single most persuasive tool we have left on the nuclear issue.)

Rhubarbs writes "...Not sure what the point of sending Condi to Georgia now is; the chance for her to do any good with her mere presence ended last weekend..."

Well, on a practical level, she is something like the American troops who were long in place near the Korean no-man's land.  As long as they were there, it represented a hair trigger.  Any hair on their heads hurt, and No. Korea would be at war with the U.S.

So, as long as Condi is in  Georgia, Tiblisi, the Russians aren't likely to bomb or invade the city.  Perhaps she should stay for awhile.

Meanwhile, you can't say having the American Secretary of State in Georgia doesn't make some kind of statement.  And it puts us in solidarity wioth the Euroe Foreign Ministers who have already been there.

She may also be discussing arrangements to send Georgia weapons like advanced anti tank and anti aircraft stuff.