And Then He Parted the Waters . . .

According to Tim Kaine -- Virginia governor and a top (eager!) contender for Barack's veep slot -- the Russian cease-fire is attributable to Putin and Medvedev adhering to "the senator [Obama's] call for a cease fire."

This has to be the most inane comment out there, except perhaps for that of another aspiring veep, Bill Richardson, who told CNN that "President Obama will have a good, strong dialogue-oriented relationship with Russia, where these kinds of situations would not occur."

These are the people who are hoping to join Barack -- a scant four years out of the Illinois state legislature -- at the top of the Democrat ticket?!

Reality check:

(1) As of this time, the Russians are continuing to shell Georgia. There is no cease-fire, Governor Kaine.

(2) Our relationship with Russia has been nothing if not full of "dialogue," Ambassador Richardson. In fact, perhaps the most embarrassing mis-assessment of President Bush's entire term has been his insistence that he was "able to get a sense of [Putin]'s soul." This preceded years of friendly visits and backslaps in Putin's country and in Crawford.

Look, yet again, where friendly "dialogue" alone gets us with international thugs like Russia and

Iran.

Does any serious person really believe that just the charm of the Obamessiah will hold these and other international bad guys at bay? The whole idea is just another symptom of the frightening naivete of the left at home and abroad -- along with its moral hypocrisy, highlighted brilliantly by Victor Davis Hanson:

The Russians have sized up the moral bankruptcy of the Western Left. They know that half-a-million Europeans would turn out to damn their patron the United States for removing a dictator and fostering democracy, but not more than a half-dozen would do the same to criticize their long-time enemy from bombing a constitutional state.