Barack's Vacation from History

It's Barack's summer vacation, burning carbon to Blue Hawaii. Jetting his entourage across the Pacific, Barack Obama is trolling for dollars and lolling on the beach at an oceanfront estate he's rented at market-value from a campaign contributor--is it another Tony Rezko property? Not this time. But some other unpleasantness intrudes on the would-be president Obama. Jonah Goldberg on Barack Obama and Russia's thuggish energy grab:

Moreover, Russian bombs reportedly targeted the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which runs through Georgia on its way to the Mediterranean — the only oil pipeline in Central Asia not under Russian control. Russia is tightening its chokehold on oil and gas at precisely the moment energy costs have become the paramount domestic issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.

Obama’s response?

First, on Friday, he gave a conventional written statement calling for calm, United Nations action and “restraint” from both sides — followed an hour later by a slightly stronger condemnation of Russian aggression and a call for a cease-fire.

So for an international crisis, Obama puts away the soaring rhetoric and hides behind a statement we might expect from any State Department functionary. But that’s not to say he didn’t make it to the cameras. The next day he headlined a rally celebrating his vacation in Hawaii. He promised “to go body surfing at some undisclosed location.”

What do you expect from someone who has George Clooney as one of his foreign policy advisers? A few grown-ups on the left are appalled at the appeasement. Michael Williams, The Guardian:

By refusing the give Georgia a Map, Germany, France and the rest of the alliance gave the Kremlin a veto on Georgia's Nato membership, which is totally unacceptable. Now look where we are – once again, armed conflict in the backyard of Europe that European diplomacy has been unable to resolve in any reasonable way. Europe needs to wake up and smell the jet fumes from the Russian planes bombing Georgia. Russia is a great power and the Kremlin pays great power politics.

And this underscores the need for us to adopt a realistic energy policy in America, so that we're not at the mercy of dictators flush with oil, flush with our oil dollars, and so flush with power that they invade a neighboring democracy. Russia is flexing its thuggish muscles again, but Barack wants us to take a vacation from history, to our cost.

P.S. Putin, you've got mail.