I accept that it is most unlikely that McCain had, personally, anything to do with it.  The most that might be implied is that Randy Scheunemann - in trying to justify his $800,000 fee and talk up his own influence - might have given Saakashvili an over blown estimate of the likely US response should Russia re-act.

Saakashvili  might also have calculated that it was now or never - Bush is a lame duck, and McCain's campaign was going nowhere, so if he wanted US support he was more likely to get it during, and not after, the hyperventilated atmosphere of a Presidential Election campaign.

Even Obama -as you noted - has had to sharpen his anti-Russian rhetoric despite his willingness to talk to US enemies as in Iran.

But all of that is not my point.  Is it appropriate and proper for a Presidential Election candidate to employ as a close adviser someone with close links to a foreign power, and who is a player in the ongoing development of that relationship?  Obama was criticised for acting as if he were already President when he was in Berlin.  But here we have McCain aides actually becoming major players in a war situation.

You cannot have Presidential candidates benefiting from the exacerbation of conflicts by their own people.  The least McCain should do is sack Scheunemann  - for a possible conflict of interest.  (Scheunemann partner in a two man Lobbying consultancy is still drawing fees from the Georgian Government).

This has nothing to do with left, right, Democrat or Republican.  It is the basic ethical principle that should apply in a democracy.

It's time I got out of this game....