[Don't] Give 'em The Boot

Madeleine Albright and Bill Perry take to the pages of The LA Times to explain why John McCain's plan to boot Russia from the G-8 is crazy:

The next U.S. president will have no choice but to seek Russia's cooperation on a range of vital issues even while managing the differences that are sure to arise. We will have a far better chance of succeeding if our disagreements on matters of substance -- the future of NATO, for example -- are not aggravated unnecessarily by questions of symbolism and protocol. We cannot expect help from a government we are attempting to blackball, nor would it be in our interest to push Russia further in the direction of an alliance of autocracies with such countries as China and Iran.

At the end of the day, this stuff -- McCain's penchant for bad, ill-conceived ideas that squander US power rather than advancing our goals in practical ways -- deserves much more attention than McCain's personal courage decades ago.