<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[The Dish]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[http://dish.andrewsullivan.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Andrew Sullivan]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://dish.andrewsullivan.com/author/sullydish/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[McCain And Georgia]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[It has been a fascinating few days watching John McCain come alive. The difference between his talking about, say, energy policy or the economy, compared with the chance to have a visceral military conflict with Russia is a valuable glimpse into what makes him tick. It isn't just his comfort with military force. It's classic good McCain too. The pattern throughout his career has always been seeking out the supremely moral position in a losing conflict. And here comes Georgia, plucky little Georgia, doomed throughout history to be perched between Russia and the Black Sea, with a newly elected McCain-like figure, Mikheil Saakashvili, thumbing his nose at the biggest bully on the block. What's not for McCain to love? The hushed, Churchillian speeches and press conferences, the thrill of breaking war news, the existence of an enemy, an ancient, cold-blooded enemy against which to pivot.&nbsp; It's all a wet dream for the Arizona senator.  No one should doubt that McCain's heart is in the right place. McCain long championed the persecuted people of Iraq; and he came to the defense of the beleaguered Bosnians. He is passionate about Burma and Darfur. You name a lost cause and he will rally to it. And no position fit him better than the role of lone crusader for the surge in Iraq in 2006, a military exercise that in his mind would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and punish enemies as disparate as Saddam Hussein and Don Rumsfeld. ]]></html><thumbnail_url><![CDATA[https://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/mccainmariotamagetty2.jpg?fit=440%2C330]]></thumbnail_url><thumbnail_width><![CDATA[440]]></thumbnail_width><thumbnail_height><![CDATA[282]]></thumbnail_height></oembed>