That ’70s Show

If you were nostalgic for the 1970s, then this past week must have seemed like a gigantic Cold War reunion tour.

To recap: Our president went to China, where he dined with the Communist leadership; Russian tanks rolled through a sovereign neighbor; and domestically, there is talk of both recession and inflation. We’ve even had a dominating American swimmer break every Olympic record on the books (minus the mustache).

By the way, apparently the most common phrase in Mandarin Chinese is translated in English as, “Winner of the Olympic gold medal, Michael Phelps.”

However, don’t be fooled into thinking that it actually is the 1970s. The first instinct of many of the commentators (especially the neocons) filling the editorial pages this week to opine on Georgia is to reflexively retreat to their ideological corners and offer broad assessments and instructions with little knowledge of the region. My guess is that we as Americans and policymakers know way too little about the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to start adding Russia to the axis of evil.

Let’s hope the administration takes a deep breath and adopts a course of action that exercises greater thoughtfulness than either Russia or even Georgia have shown.

The views expressed in this blog do not represent the views or opinions of Generations United.