Barack Obama surrogate Bill Richardson shamefully prostituted his foreign policy street cred today by both hitting at John McCain and blamming President Bush for the Russian invasion of Georgia.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said McCain’s campaign “is run by lobbyists that represent Georgia and other countries.”

“He takes huge amounts of money from oil companies that are profiting in the (former) Soviet Union and many parts of the world,” the Democrat told ABC News, attempting to depict a conflict of interest for McCain.

Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, said the crisis vindicated Obama’s pledge to rebuild US alliances in Europe that were strained under President George W. Bush.

“This has been one of the failures of the Bush administration, failing to build a strong relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia, so we’d have the kind of influence to persuade them to stop some of these very, very dangerous efforts within their territory,” he said.

Richardson really ought to be embarassed at this awful display of political posturing such a fuid foreign policy and security issue. Georgia is an ally of the US and our other allies whom Richardson spins to suit his own political objectives. Of little matter to Richardson is the fact that Georgia is both a democracy and who’s troops serve alongside US troops in Iraq.

The Jerusalem Post piece by the same title is chilling in its realistic applications.

This throwback to the heyday of the Soviet Union is more than symbolic. Historical analogies are never perfect, but our sense of déjà vu was acute as we watched Moscow’s Soviet-style move to reassert its domination of the USSR’s former fief.

Moscow perceives a threat to its strategic interests from a small regional actor. It prods its neighboring clients to commit such provocations that the adversary is drawn into military action that “legitimizes” a massive, direct intervention to “defend the victims of aggression.”

Vladimir Putin has proved to be a master spy and has shrewdly kept his true intentions from the world. President George W. Bush is famous to have said he “looked into Putin’s soul,” believing what has turned out to be the exact opposite. While commanding his own country with the iron fist of a Joseph Stalin, he’s co-opted the global design of Leonid Breznev

Steve Haragan is just reporting live from Tbilisi, Georgia that Russian jets are still hitting targets in the country’s capital. He confirms that Vladimir Putin is directing operations himself and that it is believed that Russian airborne troops will be deployed into the country. He also said that from the Russian ships will land additional troops into the country.

Putin spoke to President Bush yesterday about the Georgian operations. I wonder if he lied to the president about it. It looks bad that Bush is being pictured as having a good time at the Olympics while what is proving to be a chilling return of one time Soviet expansionism.

UPDATE: Diplomats arriving in Georgia today.

As what Russian President Dimitry Menvedev told President Bush became public, it may signal that the Russians are looking to get out of the conflict. Menvedev is quoted by a Kremlin spokesman to have told Bush the following:

In a telephone call with Mr Bush, Mr Medvedev “stressed that the only way out of the tragic crisis provoked by the Georgian leadership is a withdrawal by Tbilisi of its armed formations from the conflict zone,” a Kremlin statement said.

Apparently Bush informed Medvedev thats their military actions were disproportional:

“The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis,” said Mr Bush, who is attending the Olympics in Beijing.

Vladimir Putin is reported to have returned from the Olympics to the area. Photographs have gone around the world that show civilian apartments that have been bombed in Gorgi which is outside the disputed territory.

I’m not sure if the Russians were prepared for the world media coverage of their massive aggression that a Fox News correspondant just confimed included Russian naval ships. Clearly this was planned well in advance by the Russians due to the presence of Russian armor and its navy. And it was timed to coincide with the beginning of the Olympics.

Media coverage in the US would be much greater this weekend had it not been for the revelations by John Edwards which confirmed his extramarrital affair.

The US-educated Georgian president has been quite public with his open desire for a cease-fire. The fact that the Russian president responded to the same could be indicating that they might want a way out.

The world will know Russian intentions if their planes continue to be seen over Georgia when the sun comes up there in a few short hours.

UPDATE: Writing in Pajamas Media, Roger Kimball believes that the Russians desire to reclaim all of Georgia.

When Russian tanks and troops poured into the separatist Georgian province of South Ossetia yesterday, it was not, as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, part of a “peacekeeping mission.” It was part of an imperialist mission whose undeclared goal is to reabsorb the whole of Georgia–West-leaning Georgia with its critical oil pipeline supplying energy to an increasingly thirsty Europe–into mother Russia.

Indeed, that pipeline is the unacknowledged key to the drama–unacknowledged, anyway, by the belligerents. As an AP story notes, the “U.S.-backed oil pipeline runs through Georgia, allowing the West to reduce its reliance on Middle Eastern oil while bypassing Russia and Iran.” A good thing for the West; but is such autonomy something Russia (or, for that matter, Iran) wants to encourage? Indeed, as I write, Reuters has issued an unconfirmed report that earlier today Russia attacked not only targets in South Ossetia but also targeted “the major Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline.”

UPDATE: Czech Republic Condemns Russian Federation. Offers to send peacekeeping units

UPDATE: EU to have emergency summit

UPDATE: McClatchy News Update just in.