"You have learned your lesson well, Grasshopper..."

Go listen to the Jon Stewart clip at Crooks and Liars.

And Robert Scheer asks a really good question: is this a lead-up to an October Surprise?

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?

Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.

Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, an invasion that clearly was expected to produce a Russian counterreaction? It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain’s presidential campaign.

In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia’s membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Scheunemann is at the center of the neoconservative cabal that has come to dominate the Republican candidate’s foreign policy stance in a replay of the run-up to the war against Iraq. These folks are always looking for a foreign enemy on which to base a new Cold War, and with the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, it was Putin’s Russia that came increasingly to fit the bill.

Yes, it sounds diabolical, but that may be the most accurate way to assess the designs of the McCain campaign in matters of war and peace. There is every indication that the candidate’s demonization of Russian leader Putin is an even grander plan than the previous use of Saddam to fuel American militarism with the fearsome enemy that it desperately needs...

As Avedon notes:

...a little while ago when Karl Rove declined to appear for Congressional hearings on the grounds that he would be out of the country on a "long-planned trip", that trip was to the Crimea. Gosh, I wonder what he was up to, there...

Over at kos, Karen Hedwig Backman connects some dots about that trip to Crimea the Brain of Sauron made last month.

There were some other interesting notables present, too.

...Who did Karl Rove meet on his sweet vacation in Crimea?

Hmm, it turns out he wasn't on vacation. Karl Rove never takes vacations!

FIFTH ANNUAL YALTA MEETING
10-13 July, 2008
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
Richard Haass, Karl Rove, Bob Shrum, Mikhаil Saakashvili, William Taylor...

Richard Haass is the President of the Council on Foreign Relations...

Bob Shrum was Al Gore's consultant in 2000, part of John Kerry's U.S. presidential election 2004 campaign team. Interesting that he showed up at this meeting.

Randy Scheunemann is part of John McCain's campaign staff. Also:

The issue this time is advisor Randy Scheunemann and his business partner, who apparently lobbied McCain or his staff dozens of times on behalf of -- and getting paid by -- Georgia. As the Associated Press summed it up: "On April 17, a month and a half after Scheunemann stopped working for Georgia, his partner signed a $200,000 agreement with the Georgian government. The deal added to an arrangement that brought in more than $800,000 to the two-man firm from 2004 to mid-2007. For the duration of the campaign, Scheunemann is taking a leave of absence from the firm."

McCain, of course, has warned Russia that its actions in Georgia could cost it "the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world," and has called for the deployment of international peacekeepers in the region. His staunch defense of Georgia -- regardless of how the showdown came about -- raises questions about the possible conflict of interest of Scheunemann, one of McCain's top foreign policy advisors.

You don't get to be a Sith Lord by taking vacations, sweetie, and Rover isn't just just a Kingmaker, he's as responsible as anyone for turning the Republic into an Empire.

And speaking of Empire:

... The missile defense deal was announced by Polish officials and confirmed by the White House. Under it, Poland would host an American base with 10 interceptors designed to shoot down a limited number of ballistic missiles, in theory launched by a future adversary such as Iran. A tracking radar system would be based in the Czech Republic. The system is expected to be in place by 2012.

In exchange for providing the base, Poland would get what the two sides called “enhanced security cooperation,” notably a top-of-the-line Patriot air defense system that can shoot down shorter-range missiles or attacking fighters or bombers.

A senior Pentagon official described an unusual part of this quid pro quo: an American Patriot battery would be moved from Germany to Poland, where it would be operated by a crew of about 100 American military personnel members. The expenses would be shared by both nations. American troops would join the Polish military, at least temporarily, at the front lines — facing east toward Russia...

Now that's entertainment.