Dems: Bush missed brewing Georgia crisis

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Bush administration and Republican-standard-bearer John McCain were too distracted by the war in Iraq to see the crisis in Georgia on the horizon, supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama charged Sunday.

"If the president and Senator McCain weren't so obsessed on an open-ended commitment to Iraq, perhaps we would have paid greater attention to some of these issues," Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana, told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

Other prominent Democrats, including Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, pressed the same point on other Sunday news shows. McCain's surrogates hit back that Obama's initial reaction to the Russia's August 8 incursion into Georgia shows the Illinois senator lacks the toughness needed to be president.

"One of the questions this crisis raises is, who do you want sitting across the table from Vladimir Putin and people like him, John McCain or Senator Obama?" Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty told CBS. "And I think the answer is Senator McCain."