Georgia may be returning to a fragile state of normalcy, but U.S. bloggers are just getting warmed up. Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald recently blasted the presidential candidates and the media for perpetuating the false claim that Russia attacked Georgia "unprovoked." That provoked this response from Russian-born Cathy Young of Reason who rightly points out that the coverage in the U.S. media has been a bit more nuanced than Greenwald's neocon caricature, but perhaps goes too far in comparing him (and fellow liberals) to the "Cold War-era leftists [who] pleaded for a more understanding view of the Soviet Union."

Greenwald fired right back, comparing conservative Russia hawks to those who equated opposition to the Iraq war with support for Saddam Hussein. The American Conservative's Daniel Larison also weighed in on Greenwald's side and made this point:

On those rare occasions when [criticism of Georgia] is ever spoken, it has to be hedged about with so many caveats about Moscow’s general perfidy that it loses all of its rhetorical and political force, and if it does not have all those caveats it is denounced as nothing more than an apology for Putin. This obviously undermines the quality of foreign policy debate in this country, as even those who know better avoid speaking out against the absurd establishment policies (in this case, reflexive support for Georgia and its entry into NATO) so that they avoid being ostracized as defenders of foreign authoritarian governments.

Larison doth protest a bit too much here. If he and Greenwald are going to mock the Bill Kristols and Charles Krauthammers of the world for their reflexive Putin-bashing, it behooves them to acknowledge that Georgia is more than the "new, little neocon project," as Greenwald describes it. Is it tedious to repeatedly acknowledge Putin's crimes while criticizing U.S. policy or repeatedly note Russia's role in goading Georgia into overreaction? Sure. But you set a high standard for yourself when your primary criticism of the other side is their tendency to oversimplify.

Some commentators will focus primarily on critiquing U.S. foreign policy, while others will focus primarily on Russia's expansionism and authoritarianism. There's no reason why one should preclude the other and these endless recriminations aren't exactly conducive to developing a realistic Russia policy.