The first article was an analysis at the state level. In the 2nd, I looked at the county level and looked at the issue of race polarization too. In the 3rd article, I focused on Fulton county and the specific precincts where our team of Obama volunteered worked to figure out if we made a difference.

“This is not 1968, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can invade its neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it,” [Sec of State Rice] said. “Things have changed.” [NYT]

I have no time for Russia or Vladimir Putin (whose bloody record in Chechnya is very clear).

And I quite agree: Russia’s invasion of Georgia is about oil, energy, geopolitics etc, etc.

But in the same breath she declares the US invasion of Iraq was about “overthrowing a homicidal dictatorship in Iraq”. This is absurd.

Iraq was also about oil, energy, geopolitics, etc, etc. But it was for Our Side rather than Their Side.

She thinks she is onto a winner by attacking the anti-war movement for not protesting. She might have a mild point. But she forgets that people in the UK (and US) protested against the invasion because their governments were directly involved. That is how democracy is meant to work. (Sort of.)

Maybe what really upsets Daley, is that lots of people in the run up to the Iraq invasion were not fawning over Our Dear Leaders, like they appear* to do in Russia; and like she did in the run up to and the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

*I don’t read Russian, so I can only go by English language media reports which suggest Putin enjoyed extremely high approval ratings as president.

Steve LeVine puts this conflict into context — it is all part of the ongoing ‘pipeline wars’.