I’ve been searching high and low for a clip of Bush during one of his press conferences a few years back, but have been unable to find it, so if you don’t mind, please take my word on this one. It happened.

This was at a juncture when the Iraq War was not going so well at all, a lot worse than it is now, probably around late 2005, early 2006, in and around their second legislative elections. In an attempt to gin up the importance of what those elections meant, and to downplay the horrendous violence then afflicting the Iraqi nation, Bush had said, and I quote him this far with a measure of certainty, "You see, democratically elected people are peace loving people."

There was then this Alfred E. Neuman pause and obligatory dumb grin on his face, as if, in the cobwebby, abandoned attic spaces of his mind, a vague light had gone on.

Oh yeah, democratically elected people equals peace loving people doesn’t equal blowing the shit out of Iraq.

Logic problem, logic problem.

As he fumbled on with his ensuing bullshit and did his best to cover his tracks, I remember thinking, oh boy, are we ever screwed. Nothing could more aptly characterize our loss of moral leverage in this world. Who’s going to listen to us now? How are we ever going to dictate right and wrong to anyone else? People will laugh if we dare to open our mouths.

So it was in listening to Bush warn Putin about stopping the violence in Georgia the other day. It had all the import of a pillow dropping from eighteen stories.

One can argue who’s to blame for starting this whole mess. The answer is muddled at best, no matter whose side you happen to be on. But clearly Russia has invaded Georgia, an international crime that is now exacerbated by the fact that we have no moral grounds on which to demand their retreat. Who are we to demand a cessation of violence? Meanwhile, a breathtakingly beautiful country is being reduced to rubble by Russia’s version of shock and awe.

If you want to see what a lovely, lovely countryside their currently blowing to crap, rent the movie Chefs In Love. You’ll want to sell your house and buy a one way ticket to Tbilisi. Georgia stands as a bulwark against the madness of globalization. It is ancient, pastoral. Gross median income doesn’t mean a damned thing at all. When beauty surrounds you as you walk down a country lane to your home, who gives a damn about gross median income?

Just in the name of peace and sanity, and in the name of humanity itself, you want to throw your body on the ground and say, for God’s sake, please stop the killing. But here it is, one more way in which George Bush’s policies have royally screwed our international standing in the world. We are without an olive branch of peace to hold out with our hands.

This current conflict also demonstrates so well how an Obama Presidency would stand in stark contrast to one with John McCain: imperialism. Only when we have ceased our own invasion of sovereign nations will we have credibility to chastise a weasel like Putin for doing the same.