GA-Sen: Woah! Chambliss at 50%, Dem Martin within 6

I follow the Senate races pretty closely but I have to admit this surprises me. Rasmussen has Sen. Saxby Chambliss of GA (the man who, you may recall, beat Max Cleland in one of the most depressing elections ever six years ago) just clinging to the magic 50% number, with challenger Jim Martin rapidly closing the gap. Who would have possibly expected this race would be competitive?

Of course, Rasmussen is right to point out that this could just be a bounce produced by Martin's finally winning the primary, and we are talking here about just one poll. But look how well it fits the trend:

And it's also true that Chambliss has like eighty bajillion dollars in his campaign account and Martin has, I don't know, $10. Which, regardless of close polls, makes the odds of a Democratic win here pretty microscopic. But it could happen if Martin picks up momentum (and remember, the presence of Bob Barr might cause screwy things downticket in Georgia)... keep an eye on this one.

--Another indicator of growing dissatisfaction with Republicans in unlikely areas: Oklahoma. A DSCC poll (and, yes, consider the source) has Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) at that same 50% mark, up 9 against his opponent Andrew Rice. Even if national numbers do now appear to be stalling, the picture in downticket races just keeping looking better for Democrats...

More from the Department of Irony

George Bush on Russia's invasion of Georgia:

Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected.... Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.

Robert Gates on the consequences of the invasion:

What happens in the days and months to come will determine the future course of U.S.-Russian relations. But by the same token, my personal view is that there needs to be some consequences for the actions that Russia has taken against a sovereign state.

And:

My guess is that everyone is going to be looking at Russia through a different set of lenses as we look ahead.

Speaking from experience, perhaps?

(For a previous update from the Department of Irony, see here.)

The bright side of the Georgia conflict

When I was in high school, I spent a significant amount of time participating in a semi-obscure activity known as Student Congress, in which high school students put on suits at unreasonably early hours, sort themselves into groups of 24 or so, and debate various issues with three-minute speeches as if they were members of Congress. In terms of social status, it's right up there with band camp. (Harvard hosts one of the better tournaments every February, in case you're curious.) I enjoyed a lot of things about Student Congress, but one exception was the mind-numbing omnipresence of Thomas Friedman references. In an attempt to have something to say about all foreign policy topics without having to do any actual research, most of us would skim The Lexus and the Olive Tree and horribly oversimplify Friedman's arguments. (Did you know Tom Friedman loves globalization? And Bangalore? Me neither!) The single most pervasive example of this habit is Friedman's Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, which posits:

No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's.

Cute the first time around, but over a four-year span, it became the bane of my debating life. I'm just now acknowledging that Friedman occasionally writes good columns.

So you can imagine, or maybe you can't, the great joy I felt this morning when I saw Matt Yglesias point out that the Russia-Georgia conflict disproves Friedman's theory. Perusing the comments (and, for that matter, Wikipedia, which has proved surprisingly useful in this conflict), I discovered that a number of other incidents have actually disproved Friedman long before me - NATO bombed Serbia, the US invaded Panama, Israel fought Lebanon. In any case, it's really good to know that sometime, somewhere, some Thomas Friedman-citing kid is going to get shot down.

McCain discovers Wikipedia

Taegan Goddard passes on a tip from a Wikipedia editor that John McCain's speech on the crisis in Georgia bore some striking similarities to the country's Wikipedia entry.

For instance, McCain describes Georgia as

one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion

where Wikipedia describes it as

one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion.

Or, McCain says:

After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises.

Wikipedia says:

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis.

Far be it from me to sling accusations of plagiarism - I leave that to Hillary Clinton - but this looks awfully sketchy to me. On the plus side, if McCain really is going to be the president, I'm glad he (well, his speechwriter) is at least getting his facts from somewhere, even if the average high school teacher would consider it unworthy of citation. Think how much trouble he could have saved himself if he'd just read the Wikipedia article for Czechoslovakia. Next step in the McCain Personal Technological Literacy Plan: realize that some blogger, somewhere, will rapidly catch on to the fact that you used Wikipedia to formulate your foreign policy.