Links and Minifeatures 2008 08 08 Friday

Absolutely vile: Threatening opposition campaign donors

They've been accusing Republicans of voter suppression for decades, even though the balance of evidence lies in the other direction. Now the left is openly attempting to intimidate likely Republican donors.

Georgia and Russia are at war

Ostensibly, the reason is Georgia's attempt to bring South Ossetia back under its control.

In reality, that's a thin excuse. Gorbachev and Yeltsin made a decision not to fight secession of the 14 former soviet republics. For one thing, they couldn't fight all 14 at once with the soviet military in the state it was in, not to mention the failed coup.

Putin has made it clear he wants the rest of the empire back, and has built his rule in large part upon appealing to those who long for the glory of the Soviet days. He's made it clear that he's looking for excuses to re-acquire the seceded republics, while they're trying to break further from Russia's orbit.

Georgia, which borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. Georgia has angered Russia by seeking NATO membership - a bid Moscow regards as part of a Western effort to weaken its influence in the region.

The current president of Georgia deposed a soviet holdover in the Rose Revolution of 2003, putting Georgia squarely in Putin's cosshairs. South Ossetia, which wanted to reunite with Russia and whose de facto autonomous government is pro-Russia, is the excuse that he will use to justify conquest if he can.

More here

Bombs rocked Tbilisi early Saturday morning as the fight between Georgia and Russia over a breakaway region intensified and moved into the Georgian capital.

Tbilisi is the capital of all of Georgia, and it's more than a small distance away from South Ossetia. This should remove any doubts as to Putin's true objective.

When a politician tells an audience what they want to hear, that's business as usual.

When a politician tells an audience something they don't want to hear, that's conviction, because it always risks alienating the few votes they need to win in a narrowly divided country.

In corn country, McCain says no to ethanol support

McCain has never been shy about speaking against subsidizing ethanol when he is in farm country, though that stand helped to make him unpopular enough in Iowa that he skipped participating in its leadoff presidential caucuses in 2000 and again in 2008.

I don't agree with everything John McCain is campaigning on, but we need more people who realize it's not good for the country to do everything that everybody wants, simply to win a few votes on the margin.

And unlike his major opponent, he makes a habit of saying where he disagrees with people, even though it may cost him votes - which means there's good reason to believe it. Obama tailors his positions to the audience, telling some audiences one thing, the next audience something entirely different. What Obama was saying he would do was completely different in the primaries than what he is saying now that he has the Democratic nomination locked up. Where does he really stand? What does he really believe? It's hard to tell. The only real evidence is his past votes - and a president should not vote "present". You know where John McCain really stands on an issue, because he's willing to risk losing those voters, and pay the cost for his position.

Instapundit on the new Obama salute.

A threat on Obama's life? Very newsworthy! Stop the presses!

A threat on President Bush's life? Not so much.

Put the former on Page one. Edit out the latter. Somebody might say this sort of action says something about those who do it. They'd be right.

Especially in conjunction with this, what might a reasonable observer deduce as likely?

The Olympics start today. In Beijing, China. Home of one of the most repressive governments on earth, and the most widespread sponsor of other repressive governments.

I think the site selection committee needs to get fired.