By Sunday and Monday, when the situation was starting to get serious, I don't recall any mention of the role of Georgia in starting the conflict. It is all Russian aggression against Georgia.  Not until mid-week did I see  critical coverage of the role that the Bush Administration and John McCain had played in encouraging Georgia.  And still the preponderance of the coverage seems to be on Russia's actions.  There is a lot more condemnation of Russia's "disporportionate" response than there is to that to which what they were responding.

First impressions can be lasting.  I suspect that not many US citizens became aware of the situation until Sunday or later.  By that time their first impressions  didn't likely include the fact that Georgia set off this round of trouble.

The neo-cons schemes blow up in their faces, they are shown by the facts to be incompetent and impotent and yet they are not called on it.  It seems to me that what coverage there was of Georgia's role was the minimum possible so that US news organizations could say: "well, we did cover it."  That is not good enough for me.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

This is a common misconception in the US.

Western Europe has been taking a soft approach towards Russia for decades, and you should read up about de Gaulle's France not systematically pointing its missiles at the USSR, or Willy Brandt's "Ostpolitik". That was in the 60s, for God's sake, way before Russia would sell us any energy.

It's just not written in stone that Russia should be fenced off, and we have learnt over centuries that playing the bully just does not pay in the long run - and this, the US public and politicians will eventually learn it as well.

It's just too bad they cause so much misery in the meantime.