During a press conference this afternoon in Birmingham, Mich., Sen. John McCain repeatedly said the conflict between Georgia and Russia should not be used for political gain. One such statement came in response to a question about comments made by Sen. Barack Obama’s adviser, Susan Rice, who said McCain’s aggressive statements may have worsened the situation.

"First of all, this isn’t a time for partisanship and sniping between campaigns. This is about hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people whose lives are either being taken or their rendered homeless, wounded. This is no time for that."

There’s just one problem: Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) did just that yesterday on McCain’s behalf. He used the crisis to blast the presumed Democratic nominee for being too inexperienced to lead. From Reuters:

“As the Russians move into Georgia as aggressors, and if you read the statements from the beginning, from Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama, one had a kind of moral neutrality to it that comes I think from inexperience.

“The other’s — Sen. McCain’s — was strong and clear and principled and put America where America always want to be, on the side of freedom,” [Lieberman] said while introducing McCain.

McCain ducked when asked if he would condemn Lieberman’s statements or call on his surrogates to refrain from playing politics with future events like this. One of the reporters acknowledged the awkwardness of the situation, as Lieberman was standing next to McCain at the press conference.


Oh, and here’s the rest of the McCain quote from above:

"Second, if I may be so bold, there was another president, at one time, there was a president named Ronald Reagan, who spoke very strongly about America’s advocacy for democracy and freedom. He was criticized at that time."

In case you missed the irony there, here’s a summary of McCain’s message: Using this crisis for partisan political gain is bad, but I’m not going to distance myself from statements made by my surrogates, or ask them to refrain from doing so in the future. 


P.S. My handling of this situation shows that I’m just like Ronald Reagan.