I'm listening to this report and hearing you refer to South "Oh-see-sha"

Everyone else has been calling it South "O-set-tia"

Which is it? And why aren't we more careful about how we pronounce foreign names?

David Remnick made a stunning omission discussing press coverage of the events in Georgia. There is a difference between entering a secessionist territory within your own national borders (as Georgia did), and invading a foreign sovereign country, occupying and destroying large portions of its cities and forests (as Russia did in Georgia). Press coverage of Georgia attributed less culpability to Georgia's attempt (however ill-advised) to reassert control over its own land of S. Ossetia than to Russia's vengeful excesses in Georgia far beyond S. Ossetia. Debunking hawkish comparisons of Putin to Hitler in 1938-39, Mr. Remnick neglected the exact analogies of history: (1) Russia's 2 brutal military campaigns in Chechnya, regaining control over its own secessionist "autonomous" republic, flattening the Chechen capital and many of its people; and (2) the USSR invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. In Georgia, Russia also violated the boundaries of another territory where Russia had undertaken a "peacekeeping" role -- Abkhazia. On August 8, there was peace in Abkhazia; instead of keeping the peace, Russia itself violated the agreement it was to safeguard, and incited the Abkhazians to join them in breaking it (they obliged).

Western media made a distinction between Georgia and Russia because *there is* a distinction. Why is evenhandedness in every circumstance the standard, when the facts dictate otherwise? That Georgia's leadership is more western-media friendly than Russia's is neither incidental nor calculated--it reflects the fact that Georgia is a more open, western society than Russia.

But Remnick is right that the reporting was much better than the commentary. 90% of columnists and editorialists (whichever side they took) betrayed an almost-total ignorance of the issues at hand.