John McCain doesn't speak for this American

John McCain recounted to a town hall meeting audience last week the conversation that he had with Georgian President Saakashvili, when he told the president that "...I know I speak for every American when I say...today, we are all Georgians." I'm confident that 9 out of 10 Americans (at a minimum) can't locate Georgia on a map, don't know the names of the Georgian capital or president, and can't pronounce the names of either if they were to see them written on a page. And it is not that Americans are just ignorant (although we mostly are), but that Georgia is just inconsequential to the everyday life of the average American.

McCain's arrogant claim to speak for every American would be amusing if McCain wasn't ready to pledge American blood and money to defend this country that no one knows about. If McCain had his way, Georgia would be a member of NATO and the US would be obligated to defend her against attack. If McCain had his way, American soldiers and marines would be dying in Georgia. What exactly is the vital US interest in Georgia that would justify the loss of a single American life?

Personally, I prefer the foreign policy of our Founding Fathers to the interventionist foreign policy of McCain and his neocon advisers. As Washington said in his farewell address, "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. ...Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. ...Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?"

If only today's politicians (both Republican and Democrat) would abide by Washington's "great rule of conduct."