Ilan Goldenberg remembers:

John McCain, a man with a long long record on national security, comes out and says some half reasonable things about non-proliferation and working with Russia and the press and foreign policy community simply suspend all disbelief and just swoon. 

Seriously, rather then just reading the speech one might consider the fact that this is a man who has actually called for kicking Russia out of the G8 and even in the speech yesterday continued to call for national missile defense -  something that would greatly damage any possibility for cooperation with Russia.  A man who has a long history of saying belligerent things about allies and foes.  A man who has joked about bombing Iran.  A man who voted against ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.  A man who has a long record of showing a penchant for using military force.  A man who with this type of history would be unlikely to achieve any of the main goals he seems to lay out in the speech

While we’re reminiscing: I recall, about 5 years ago, when the Bushies were boldingly tearing up the Agreed Framework with North Korea and replacing it with … well, nothing, John McCain was asked on TV what he would do if China failed to stop North Korea from expanding its nuclear program.  (Funny postscript: China failed to stop North Korea from expanding its nuclear program.  After letting North Korea develop nuclear weapons without limit for five years, Bush eventually got Pyongyang to agree to a less effective deal than the one Clinton et al nogotiated in 1994.)  McCain’s said he would respond to such an unlikely contingency by helping South Korea, Japan, and – and I pray I’m misremembering this – Taiwan develop their own nuclear weapons.  John McCain did not appear particularly concerned that, if one is interested in preventing a nuclear arms race in Asia, aggressively promoting a nuclear arms race in Asia is not likely to be a fruitful policy.  John McCain can be charming, but his record in foreign policy is a record of unequalled crazy.

… Here is McCain a few years later, on a different show, pushing the same policy in more diplomatic terms.

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