Scary thought - Putin and I think along the same lines.

At the risk of becoming the "Russia guy" (we have/had contributors who are more experienced on the subject):

Vladimir Putin made explicit what I have implied many times before (albeit I implied that the Russians were motivated, as they seemingly escalated this conflict).

I think it is obvious, though CNN did a good job of not assigning one candidate or another to Putin's remarks, that the candidate this helps is John McCain. It is clearly a bold statement for someone of his position to make, and smacks of conspiracy theorism.

On the smart/stupid scale (1 = smart, 10=stupid), where does this rank amongst diplomatic statements? I say six, if only because its interesting and even though one is 95% certain its not true, you still have a ridiculously high percentage (5%) that thinks, 'Well, maybe...'