Kremlin "Endorsement" of Obama?

*Update, below:

Shades of the Cold War! The Russian regime is now fully engaged in a clumsy, old style propaganda campaign, having told the Russian television breakfast crowd on the news today that the entire incident in Georgia was secretly "engineered" by Vice President Dick Cheney in order to promote the candidacy of John McCain, and prevent Barack Obama from being elected!

In fact, it's the "official" line, according to the above story in the Times of London filed by their Moscow correspondent, Charles Bremner, "Kremlin dusts off Cold War lexicon to make US villain in Georgia." (h.t. Drudge)

Russians were told over breakfast yesterday what really happened in Georgia: the conflict in South Ossetia was part of a plot by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, to stop Barak Obama being elected president of the United States.

The line came on the main news of Vesti FM, a state radio station that — like the Government and much of Russia's media — has reverted to the old habits of Soviet years, in which a sinister American hand was held to lie behind every conflict, especially those embarrassing to Moscow. Modern Russia may be plugged into the internet and the global marketplace but in the battle for world opinion the Kremlin is replaying the old black-and-white movie.

The Obama angle is getting wide play. It was aired on Wednesday by Sergei Markov, a senior political scientist who is close to Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister and power behind President Medvedev.

. . . .

The whole thing is really "camp" in a way, and Bremner's description of it as a "black-and-white movie" is exactly right. Plus, it definitely reads like the Kremlin is thereby implicitly endorsing Obama.

Now, if Obama was really sharp politically, he'd step right up to the plate and expressly and categorically reject any such suggestion. That would be duly noticed by those in the center. One trouble is that his foreign policy advisor, Susan Rice has already fanned the flames of the overall general notion, as was noted by Ed Morrissey on HotAir by ridiculously stating on Hardball that John McCain had aggressively "shot from the hip" with his response. No one else made such an asinine comment, but a sizeable contingent of his support base likely believes everything the Kremlin has said is all true -- so Obama would have to carefully calculate his response so as not to disappoint them!


*Update: Last night, Allahpundit at HotAir posted a sentence from the Times story as the Quote of the Day.

"Bush himself did not want a war in South Ossetia but his Republican Party did not leave him any choice."

Many of the comments at the post note the implicit endorsement of Obama angle therein.