While it is widely assumed among the punditocracy that any national security issues will work to John McCain’s advantage this fall, it looks like it was actually the Obama campaign that was the first side to make the war in Georgia a partisan issue.

Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice fired the first bullet Tuesday night accusing McCain’s initial comments about the conflict of potentially exacerbating the situation.

“John McCain shot from the hip, a very aggressive, very belligerent statement,” Rice told MSNBC (above). “He may or may not have complicated the situation.”

McCain’s first statement immediately laid blame on Russia for escalating the conflict while Obama and the White House initially called on “restraint” from both Georgia and Russia. However, Obama has more recently ratcheted up his anti-Russia rhetoric as the week has gone on and has essentially adopted what Rice calls McCain’s “belligerent” tone.

For his part, McCain told FOX yesterday that there is “no room for partisanship” on Georgia though one of his surrogates, Sen. Lieberman, struck back at Camp Obama last night noting that the Democrat’s initial statement on Georgia showed “inexperience.”

The latest: McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds directly responds to Rice’s attack.

“During an international crisis when bipartisanship is needed most, it’s unfortunate to see the Obama campaign launch an inflammatory, and baseless political attack,” Bounds said.

CLEVELAND —

The Democratic Party’s drafting committee began composing their platform this afternoon. Foreign and domestic policies were covered today incorporating ideas from both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The drafters also took into account the stories of struggling Americans that spoke this morning, concerns brought up in over 1,300 meetings with Americans around the country, and various groups that urged the committee yesterday to include their issues in the platform.

Committee Chairperson and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano described the platform draft the committee is working from, “It really sets forth with clarity various foreign policy ideals that we have as Democrats. It incorporates new ideas on education both K through 12 and higher education. The platform on energy is very strong and the connection between a new energy future and a new economic future for the country.”

Clinton backer and former top health care policy advisor to President Clinton said it was “heartening” to see so many of her policies in the draft especially with regards to health care, “It’s important that her voice and her overall policies are included and I’ve seen that over the last few days and it’s been important to her and her followers that you are seeing in this first draft of the platform very specific references to issues she has cared about and how she talked about it,” Chris Jennings told Fox News, “When she’s talked about people who are invisible. When she talks about the sandwich generation. When she talks about middle class working people and empowering them to work.”

The draft does mention the “sandwich generation” which is the growing number of Americans caring for both children and parents – a group Clinton often said during her campaign needs to be helped. The draft acknowledges that, “It’s time we stop just talking about family values, and start pursuing policies that truly value families. Families are increasingly responsible for caring for children and aging relatives and its (sic) time for the government to meet them halfway.”

Jennings acknowledged that there will always be some Clinton supporters that have “hurt feelings” over the bruising primary, but that Democrats are unified now to beat John McCain. He pressed that Obama still needs to reach out to both Clinton and her supporters, “She has been saying nothing but very good things about Senator Obama and you know I think it is important that he reaches out to her frankly and to her supporters because she won almost 49 percent of the vote and I think she is and 18 million people are important,” Jennings continued, “It’s a part of conciliation. It’s part of reconciliation, but I totally see it particularly ironically amongst the candidates. She long ago said let’s look forward not backwards and…it is helpful to her to be able to point to specific things. For example, in this platform there are signals of reaching out.”

Napolitano said the party is unified on the platform and the direction they want to take the country, but there is room for disagreement, “Talk nuance, word choice, all the rest but the goals of a revitalized economy, a strong military, an emphasis on education and education for the 21st century leading into the new types of jobs that we need to have,” Napolitano told reporters, “These are shared values in the party and that is what is coming on to the platform.”

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Senator Barack Obama’s campaign issued a fiery statement today about the photo allegedly circulated by the Clinton camp of Barack Obama dressed in as a traditional Somali Elder on a 2006 trip to Africa. Campaign manager called the act “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.” Plouffe continued, “This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world.”

Later on a conference call, Obama surrogate General Scott Gration explained that he too was along for the trip. “We try on Christmas gifts, sometimes that we may not want to keep, but we try them on as being a grateful recipient. Sen. Obama did what any leader should do: accepted the gift, accepted the hospitality, accept that token of friendship and he did it in a way that showed respect and helped build the bridges that he does so well. He’s a unifier in all atmospheres and certainly that day he was somebody who accepted a gift of friendship in a way that we would expect our president to do.”

Foreign Policy advisor Susan Rice noted the irony that the Clinton camp would push the photo on the day when Senator Clinton is set to talk about the importance of restoring America’s reputation in the world. The photo, Rice said, is “I think it’s a very unfortunate message to send, not one that in my experience the President or Mrs. Clinton themselves have embraced. I’ve traveled with each of them to Africa and I’ve seen them, as President Clinton did, dress himself in kinte cloth in Ghana or in traditional costume in Senegal. And there they showed the kind of outreach and respect that General Gration was just describing and which ought to be the hallmark of our engagement with the rest of the world.”