TODAY: U.S. Dignitaries (McCain, Rice, Cheney) issue warnings Russia is deepening its international isolation and threatening U.S. security. Lavrov rejects Cheney’s attack on Russia. Russia accuses the United States of encouraging Georgian aggression. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to receive Liberty Medal in 2008 for his role in ending the Cold War. Russian aggression in Georgia hasn’t exactly been met with a charm offensive. At the Republican National Convention last night, U.S. Presidential candidate John McCain promised against a return to the days of the Cold War, however stating without doubt that Russia’s actions posed a direct threat to U.S. security. Using the “straight-talk express”, consisting of language that the Bush Administration has largely shied away from over the past eight years in relation to Russia, McCain declared that “we can’t turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people.”