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John McCain said Monday that it was unfair for Rep. John Lewis to compare the negative tone of the Republican presidential campaign to the atmosphere a segregationist fostered in the 1960s.

McCain suggested that the comments by the Georgia Democrat and veteran of the civil rights movement carry more weight than those of a Virginia Republican Party leader who compared Democratic rival Barack Obama to Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

“This is not just some obscure party official,” McCain said in an interview aired by CNN. “And that’s what’s so totally unacceptable about it.”

According to Time magazine, Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick recently told McCain volunteers in the state that Obama and bin Laden “both have friends that bombed the Pentagon.”

McCain has repudiated similar past statements about Obama, but did not specifically address Frederick’s comments in the interview.

“You have people in political campaigns on the outer most fringe on both ends of the spectrum,” McCain said.

McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have said Obama failed to tell the truth about his relationship with 1960s radical William Ayers, and Palin has accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists,” meaning Ayers.

Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground, a radical, Vietnam War-era group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol.

Ayers also hosted a reception for Obama in 1995, when Obama was beginning his political career. The two also have worked with the same nonprofit organizations in Chicago. McCain’s campaign has tried to exploit those ties, even while saying it disagreed with Frederick.

“While Barack Obama is associated with domestic terrorist William Ayers, the McCain campaign disagrees with the comparison that Jeff Frederick made and believes that his comment was not appropriate,” said McCain-Palin spokeswoman Gail Gitcho.

In a statement Saturday, Lewis said McCain and Palin were “sowing the seeds of hatred and division” and “hostility in our political discourse,” and noted the tone that segregationist Gov. George Wallace fostered in 1960s Alabama.

“George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights,” said Lewis, who is black. “Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.”

Obama’s campaign said he doesn’t believe McCain or his policy criticism is comparable to Wallace and his segregationist policies.

Lewis issued a follow-up statement Saturday, saying it was not his “intention or desire” to directly compare McCain or Palin to Wallace.

Lewis’ comments followed reported examples of anger at McCain-Palin rallies that has been aimed at Obama, the first black man to be a major party’s nominee for president. GOP supporters have shouted “traitor,” “terrorist,” “treason,” “liar” and “off with his head.”

McCain defended his audiences, saying most who attend the rallies are “good and decent and patriotic Americans.”

“To somehow intimate that the overwhelming majority of those people, with rare exception, are somehow not good Americans or are motivated by anything but the most patriotic motives is insulting and I won’t accept that insult,” he said.

President Bush is getting an update on civilian reconstruction work in Afghanistan, where rising extremist attacks are making this the most violent year since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime.

Bush was to host Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Friday at the White House, where their discussion also was expected to cover the violence being waged by the Taliban and al-Qaida extremists hiding in the border regions of Pakistan. Karzai is backing a joint U.S.-Afghani-Pakistani military task force that could operate on both sides of the border.

Bush and Karzai were to participate in a video teleconference with U.S. provisional reconstruction team leaders, Afghan governors and representatives of the National Guard’s agricultural development team. Twenty-six reconstruction teams now operate in Afghanistan — 12 led by the U.S. and 14 directed by NATO allies and coalition partners.

The White House said Bush and Karzai, who spoke with congressional leaders on Thursday, also would talk about security and the expansion of the Afghan army.

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon may be able to send thousands more combat troops to Afghanistan starting in the spring, but he also pointedly cautioned against overdoing a military buildup in a country that long has resisted the presence of foreign forces.

“I think we need to think about how heavy a military footprint the United States ought to have in Afghanistan,” Gates said. “Are we better off channeling resources into building and expanding the size of the Afghan national army as quickly as possible, as opposed to a much larger Western footprint in a country that has never been notoriously hospitable to foreigners?”

There are now about 31,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and roughly an equal number of coalition troops.

In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday in New York, Karzai said the international community should redouble its efforts to strengthen the Afghan army and police force so they can fight terrorism more effectively and protect Afghan citizens.

U.S.-Afghan relations have suffered over the deaths of civilians during bombing raids. An Afghan commission found that an Aug. 22 U.S.-led operation in the western village of Azizabad killed 90 civilians, including 60 children. Karzai said the casualties hurt the “credibility of the Afghan people’s partnership with the international community.”

At least 120 U.S. soldiers and 104 troops from other NATO nations have died already in Afghanistan this year, both record numbers. Overall, more than 4,500 people — mostly militants — have died in attacks this year.

John McCain and Barack Obama are targeting each other’s economic advisers in a new pair of dueling campaign ads.

Republican McCain released a new spot Thursday that quotes The Washington Post as saying Democrat Obama gets advice on mortgage and housing policy from a former Fannie Mae chief executive, Franklin Raines.

Obama responded with an ad about McCain’s “fundamentally wrong” advisers. That’s a play on McCain saying earlier this week, as turmoil rocked Wall Street, that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” He later backtracked from the comment under criticism from Democrats, including Obama.

Obama’s campaign says Raines is not an Obama adviser and that McCain’s campaign knows it because Raines said so in an e-mail earlier this week to Carly Fiorina, a top McCain adviser. Obama’s campaign provided The Associated Press with a copy of the e-mail.

“Carly: Is this true?” Raines asks above a forwarded note informing him that Fiorina was on television saying he was an Obama housing adviser. “I am not an adviser to the Obama campaign. Frank.”

Obama’s campaign says Fiorina did not respond.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said he was not aware of the e-mail to Fiorina, but noted that the Post reported on three occasions, between July 16 and Aug. 28, that Raines was advising Obama.

“If he was not advising, obviously someone somewhere along the way should have corrected the record,” Rogers said.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said he has since asked the Post for a correction. Burton said Obama only met Raines once briefly at an event, and that Raines sought an introductory meeting with Obama Senate aide Mike Strautmanis. At that meeting, Burton said no advice was sought from or given by Raines, who also had served as President Clinton’s budget director.

“This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth,” Burton said. “Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything — ever.”

McCain’s 30-second ad, titled “Advice,” notes that Raines made millions and then left Fannie Mae while it was under investigation for accounting irregularities. The government took control of Fannie Mae earlier this month in an attempt to stabilize the housing market.

“Bad advice. Bad instincts. Not ready to lead,” the ad says.

Obama’s 30-second ad, titled “Who Advises,” looks at McCain’s economic advisers — Fiorina, Phil Gramm and President Bush. It notes that Fiorina was fired as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and that Gramm called Americans hurt by the economy a “nation of whiners.” It also says McCain wants to continue Bush’s policies.

“They think the economy is fundamentally strong. We know they’re fundamentally wrong,” Obama’s ad says.

The White House throttled back its description of the U.S. economy on Wednesday, labeling it resilient enough to withstand some shocks to the system but refusing to say it is fundamentally sound — the phrase that has jolted the race for the presidency.

In defending the latest corporate rescue by the government, the White House put the country’s economic state in a much more measured perspective.

Press secretary Dana Perino said “it’s not clear-cut,” but rather a mixed package of up-and-down economic measures, sometimes even on the same day.

“Our economy has the strength to be able to deal with these shocks,” Perino said as financial markets were still reeling from corporate meltdowns.

The economic language that emerges from the White House is always important. It sends messages to the markets and to the masses. And it is designed to find a balance of boosting consumer confidence while also being candid enough to prevent President Bush from appearing out of touch.

When Republican presidential candidate John McCain declared Monday that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” it drew ridicule from Democratic opponent Barack Obama and his surrogates. McCain later said he meant that the fundamental strength of the American worker remained strong.

In fact, the phrase and variations of it long have been a favorite of Bush’s. “I believe the foundations of this economy are strong,” he said on July 31.

Given the political atmosphere, Perino declined to say whether the White House still stood by the statement.

“I recognize that this issue of `strength’ has come into the 2008 election,” she said. “I’m not going to try to get involved in it.”

Even when reporters asked for the president’s view of the economy regardless of the McCain-Obama race, Perino would not bite. “I know as soon as I say something you’re going to turn it around and it will be a part of the 2008 campaign,” she said. “I’m not going to play the game.”

The last few weeks have seen enough Wall Street turmoil and corporate collapses to prompt a blitz of federal interventions under Bush’s watch. It is the kind of taxpayer-supported help for the private sector that might seem at odds with Bush’s conservative, free-market economic philosophy.

But Bush and his economic advisers say the government has stepped in to keep taxpayers from facing the potential of even worse problems.

The White House on Wednesday defended the latest action, an $85 billion emergency loan for insurance giant American International Group Inc. The government gets almost an 80 percent stake in the company, the most far-reaching intervention into the private sector ever for the Federal Reserve.

AIG teetered on the edge of failure because of stresses caused by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and the credit crunch that ensued.

“While no one would have liked to have ended up in this situation, you have a government that is willing to lead,” Perino said.

Bush however, was not willing to talk about it.

He has not fielded questions about the economic upheaval this week and even canceled a statement Tuesday. Reporters have tried each day. When one tried to press Bush in the Oval Office on Wednesday, he said he could not hear the question, and then made light of the moment by saying, “I’m old.”

The president has not held a news conference since July.

There again, Perino said, Bush is reluctant to put himself in a position to face questions about the 2008 campaign. But given all the economic developments, she allowed, “I grant you that it’s been a while, and I understand that people want to hear from the president during this time.”

In the meantime, the president’s chief spokeswoman was the one challenged about where all the government bailouts will end.

“I would be misleading you if I knew,” she said. “What we are doing is taking this on a case-by-case basis, evaluating each one carefully.”

Among those pleading for Washington’s help, for instance, is the struggling U.S. auto industry, which has suffered massive losses but remains a backbone of the economy. A bill before Congress would give the companies $25 billion in federal loans.

As for AIG, Bush agreed with the loan on Tuesday after being presented with a recommendation from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during a meeting of economic advisers. Perino said Bush’s role was more consultative on the matter.

Because of AIG’s size and scope, the possible failure of the company appeared to pose a greater risk than the $85 billion loan, she said. But while Perino said the terms require taxpayers to be paid back first, when asked whether taxpayers may not get their money back at all, she said, “That is true.”

President Bush warned Russia on Saturday against trying to pry loose two separatist regions in Georgia and said Moscow must end military operations in the West-leaning democracy that once was part of the Soviet empire.

Bush told reporters at his Texas ranch that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s signing of a cease-fire plan with Georgia was “a hopeful step.” But Russia’s vision of Georgia without the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was a nonstarter, the president said.

“These regions are a part of Georgia and the international community has repeatedly made clear that they will remain so,” said Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at his side. “There’s no room for debate on this matter.”

The long-simmering dispute over those breakaway areas turned to war this month after Georgia launched a massive barrage to try to take control of South Ossetia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed the Georgian forces and drove deep into its neighbor.

Russia’s attack has caused serious strains in relations with the West and heightened fears in the young democracies of Eastern Europe.

Bush discussed the situation for nearly an hour with Rice, who arrived at the ranch around 5:30 a.m. local time from a quick trip to Georgia. They were joined via secured videoconference from Washington by other members of Bush’s national security team, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Stephen Hadley. Bush also spoke to Georgian President Mikhail Saakshvili, reiterating U.S. support.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said this past week that Georgia could “forget about” getting back South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which sympathize with Moscow. Medvedev recently met at the Kremlin with leaders from those regions, raising the prospect Russia could absorb them.

Bush countered that Georgia’s borders need to be respected. He said the U.N. Security Council had passed numerous resolutions based on the premise that South Ossetia and Abkhazia remain within Georgia and that international negotiations seek to resolve conflicts in those areas. “Russia itself has endorsed these resolutions,” Bush said.

The chilling of relations between Washington and Moscow comes as the U.S. is sealing the deal on a missile shield in Europe — an issue already unraveling ties between the two former Cold War foes. Poland and the U.S. signed an agreement Thursday for Poland to accept a missile interceptor base as part of a system the U.S. says is aimed at blocking attacks by adversaries such as Iran. The missile deal awaits approval by Poland’s parliament and signing by Rice during a future visit to Warsaw, possibly in the week ahead.

Moscow feels it is aimed at Russia’s missile force. A Russian general was quoted by Interfax News Agency on Friday as saying that by deploying the system, Poland is “exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent.”

Keeping up the pressure on Russia, Rice plans to go to Belgium this coming week for meetings with the foreign ministers of NATO allies and European Union officials to underscore support for Georgia. Bush, who discussed Georgia in calls Saturday to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Latvia President Valdis Zatlers, is expected to continue his telephone diplomacy while on vacation.

At the request of Saakshvili, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., scheduled a trip to Georgia this weekend for meetings with government officials as well as citizens forced to flee their homes.

Rice says the time had come to talk about the consequences Russia should suffer as a result of its actions in Georgia, yet she declined to possible repercussions it could face.

At the end, perhaps the only thing Russia will have proved is that “they can use their overwhelming regional military power to beat up on a small neighbor,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s actually a very good place from which to proceed on an argument that Russia ought to be considered a responsible member of the international system.”

When the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, it occupied the capital, overthrew the government and paid no consequence because it did not care about its international standing, Rice said. “That’s not Russia of 2008,” she said, adding that Medvedev recently outlined a forward-looking strategy for Russia and its further integration into the international economy. “That’s at stake.”

The cease-fire deal, which Saakshvili signed Friday after lengthy talks with Rice, calls for both Russian and Georgian forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted Aug. 8.

Russian forces withdrew Saturday from the center of a town not far from Tbilisi, the capital. But Lavrov suggested there would be no immediate broader withdrawal. Lavrov said Russia would strengthen its peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia, and that afterward, Russian forces sent in to handle the conflict would be withdrawn.

Asked how much time that would take, he responded: “As much as is needed.”

Rice bristled at this, saying that the text of the cease-fire agreement, negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the current leader of the European Union, outlined a very limited mandate only for Russian peacekeepers who were in Georgia at the time hostilities escalated. She said the agreement specifies that these initial peacekeepers can have limited patrols in a prescribed area within the conflict zone and would not be allowed to go into Georgian urban areas or tie up a cross-country highway.

According to Rice, Medvedev told Sarkozy that the minute the Georgian president signed the cease-fire agreement, Russian forces would begin to withdraw.

“So, from my point of view — and I am in contact with the French — the Russians are perhaps already not honoring their word,” Rice said.

But she added that now that the Russian president had signed it too, she expects Russian forces to withdraw expeditiously.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hit back Thursday with a 40-page rebuttal to the best-selling book “The Obama Nation,” arguing the author is a fringe bigot peddling rehashed lies.

Jerome Corsi’s anti-Obama book, “The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” claims the Illinois senator is a dangerous, radical candidate for president. The book is a compilation of all the innuendo and false rumors against Obama — that he was raised a Muslim, attended a radical, black church and secretly has a “black rage” hidden beneath the surface.

In fact, Obama is a Christian who attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

The Obama campaign picked apart the book’s claims in a rebuttal titled “Unfit For Publication,” to be posted on the Obama campaign’s rumor-fighting Web site, FightTheSmears.com. The title is a play on the book Corsi co-authored against 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s military service called “Unfit For Command.”

“Jerome Corsi is a discredited liar who is peddling another piece of garbage to continue the Bush-Cheney politics he helped perpetuate four years ago,” said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. “His is just one of what will likely be many more lie-filled books rushed to print this election cycle, which are cobbled together from debunked Internet sources to make money and advance a partisan agenda. We will respond to these smears forcefully with all means at our disposal.”

Corsi’s book is off to a swift start and is No. 1 on The New York Times’ hardcover nonfiction best-seller list, even though Obama’s campaign would argue the book should be listed as fiction.

Obama’s campaign says the book is full of factual inaccuracies that include the wrong date for the Obamas’ marriage. Corsi also writes that Obama left much of his family background out of his autobiographies — his father’s polygamy and alcoholism, his sister’s birth in Indonesia and that his then-fiance Michelle accompanied him on a visit to Kenya — but the campaign points out page numbers from “Dreams From My Father” where Obama discussed all those things.

In “The Obama Nation” — the title is a twist on the word abomination — Corsi catalogs various allegations that have haunted Obama on right-wing blogs and anonymous e-mails.

Corsi suggests, without a shred of proof, that Obama may be using drugs today. Obama has acknowledged using marijuana and cocaine as a teenager but says he quit when he went to college and hasn’t used drugs since.

Corsi makes an issue of the fact that, before he quit smoking cigarettes, Obama didn’t want it widely known that he smoked. “If Obama takes pains to hide his smoking from us, what else does he take pains to hide?” Corsi asks in the book.

Corsi also dwells on Obama’s mother marrying Obama’s African father and later marrying someone from Indonesia — whom Corsi describes as “a second man of color to be her mate.” The Obama campaign says the description is one of many examples of Corsi’s “offensive language” in the book.

He claims Obama received extensive Islamic religious education as a boy in Indonesia, education that was only offered to the truly faithful. Actually, Obama is a Christian and as a boy he attended both Catholic school and Indonesian public schools where some basic study of the Koran was offered.

He accuses Obama of wanting to weaken the military even though Obama’s campaign calls for adding 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Corsi defended raising the issue of drugs without any evidence.

“I don’t need more,” he said. “I’m putting this question forward. I’m putting the evidence forward. Voters can make up their own minds.”

Corsi writes for World Net Daily, a conservative Web site whose lead headline Thursday was “Astonishing photo claims: Dead Bigfoot stored on ice.”

In a series of Web posts several years ago, Corsi said Pope John Paul II was senile and unconcerned about sexual molestation of boys, referred to Islam is “a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion” and suggested Kerry was secretly Jewish.

Corsi apologized for the remarks and now says he didn’t mean them and was simply trying to provoke discussion.

“Obama Nation” is published by Threshold Editions, a division of Simon & Schuster that is run by Mary Matalin, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Corsi readily acknowledges the political goal of his book. He considers Obama a “radical leftist” who should not be elected president. Corsi said he has no plans to work against Obama with groups comparable to 2004’s Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but said he would be willing to consider it.

Kerry has set up his own Web site, http://www.truthfightsback.com, to push back against accusations from Corsi and others.

Still sore from an epic primary battle, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters aren’t buying the unity theme planned for the Democratic National Convention.

They weren’t mollified when nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama gave prime-time speaking slots to Clinton and her husband, the former president. Instead, they’re itching for a fight and plan to wage one in Denver.

One group intends to paper the city with fliers, promote a video detailing what they contend were irregularities in the nominating process and unleash bloggers to give their take on the proceedings. Another group has purchased newspaper advertisements demanding that Clinton be included in a roll-call vote for the nomination.

“I am a very realistic woman,” said Diane Mantouvalos, co-founder of the Just Say No Deal Coalition. “I don’t think that anything is going to change, but I do think it is important to be heard, and this is our way of doing it.”

Some of the disaffected Clinton supporters are open to supporting Obama; many are not.

Obama needs Clinton’s supporters to beat Republican John McCain. Polls show that he has won over most of them. But some simply don’t like Obama or still feel Clinton was treated unfairly during the primaries.

These groups are not affiliated with Clinton, who has endorsed Obama and campaigned for him. Representatives from the Clinton and Obama campaigns said they are working to unify the party because Obama will champion issues important to Clinton supporters, such as reforming health care, improving the economy and ending the war in Iraq.

“Senator Clinton understands and appreciates that there are supporters who remain passionate, but she has repeatedly urged her supporters to vote for Senator Obama,” Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a swipe at the Clinton die-hards Wednesday.

“I think Hillary Clinton has been very gracious,” the San Francisco Democrat told Bay Area talk show host Ronn Owens. “I think some of her supporters have been less than gracious.”

Nevertheless, many Clinton activists plan to voice their discontent in Denver.

Mantouvalos, a Miami public relations consultant, said her network is renting a 5,000-square-foot loft in Denver for its bloggers. Another outfit called The Denver Group is planning a reception the evening Hillary Clinton speaks at the convention. The group, which is pushing for Clinton’s name to be placed in nomination, also hopes to raise enough money for a TV ad.

The Clinton and Obama campaigns have pledged in a joint statement to “ensure that the voices of everyone who participated in this historic process are respected” at the convention.

They have not, however, decided whether Clinton’s name will be placed in nomination.

“The only way a Democratic Party will have the credibility to elect a Democrat in November is if the party uses a legitimate process to choose its nominee,” said Heidi Li Feldman, co-founder of The Denver Group. “We are not per se a Clinton support group, we are a Democratic Party get-your-act-together support group.”

Some of the activists complain the Obama campaign manipulated party caucuses; others feel the media treated Clinton unfairly. Nearly all are still angry over how the party divvied up delegates from the Florida and Michigan primaries.

With the agreement of all Democratic candidates, the states were initially stripped of all their delegates for violating party rules by holding early primaries. None of the candidates campaigned in the two states, but Clinton won the two primaries and thereafter tried to get all the delegates seated.

The national party reinstated the delegates in May, but gave each a half vote. And it awarded Obama some Michigan delegates, although he had taken his name off that ballot because of the party’s initial decision.

With the nomination clinched, Obama said this month that he would seek to give both delegations full voting rights.

At the very least, the activists want Clinton’s name put in nomination, with a full roll-call vote. Some won’t be satisfied unless Clinton is declared the nominee — an unlikely prospect. Others would be happy if Clinton were asked to run for vice president — also unlikely.

Feldman, a Georgetown University law professor, said she is a loyal Democrat who won’t vote for McCain, but Obama hasn’t won her support. Will Bower, co-founder of the Just Say No Deal Coalition, said he would only support the Democratic candidate if her name is Clinton.

“I have been voting Democratic for 18 years. I only voted for Democrats, from dog catcher to president and everything in between,” said Bower, who lives in Washington. “I will be voting for someone other than Barack Obama come November.”

President Bush has sharply criticized Moscow’s harsh military crackdown in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, saying the violence is unacceptable and Russia’s response is disproportionate.

The United States is waging an all-out campaign to press Russia to halt its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

Bush, in an interview with NBC, said, “I’ve expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia.”

Earlier, Vice President Dick Cheney said that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BEIJING (AP) — President Bush sought to contain the explosive conflict in Georgia on Sunday as the White House warned that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered.”

The crisis over a breakaway province, South Ossetia, appeared to ebb as Georgian troops began retreating and honoring a cease-fire, a claim Russia disputed. U.S. officials said Moscow was only broadening its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the region.

The sheer scope of Russia’s military response has the Bush administration deeply worried. Russia on Sunday expanded its bombing blitz in areas of Georgia not central to the fighting.

Vice President Dick Cheney spoke Sunday afternoon with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Cheney press secretary Lee Ann McBride said. “The vice president expressed the United States’ solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” McBride said.

Cheney told Saakashvili that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community,” McBride said.

A Russian official said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday; the figure could not be confirmed independently.

The president was to end his weeklong stay to Asia by attending a baseball game and other events Monday at the Beijing Olympics. The trip was meant mostly for fun and games — there have been plenty of both. But the fast-moving conflict in Georgia has grabbed his attention.

Bush, pressing international mediation, reached out Sunday to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who heads the European Union. The two agreed on the need for a cease-fire and a respect for Georgia’s integrity, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

In Washington, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the United States must work closely with Europe in condemning Russia’s actions.

“We cannot just go out alone on this and talk and act unilaterally. We don’t have much impact, I believe, in terms of our unilateral declarations anymore with the administration’s approach to the world,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. “We’ve got to stand together with European allies.”

Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded the provincial capital, Tskhinvali. In response, Russia launched overwhelming artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

“We’re alarmed by this entire situation, and every escalatory step is a further problem,” deputy national security adviser Jim Jeffrey told reporters.

The U.S. military began flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq after Georgia recalled the soldiers following the outbreak of fighting with Russia. The decision was a timely payback for the former Soviet republic that has been a staunch U.S. supporter and agreed to send troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition. Georgia was the third-largest contributor of coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain, and most of its troops were stationed near the Iranian border in southeastern Iraq.

The risk of the conflict setting off a wider war increased when Russian-supported separatists in another breakaway region of Georgia, Abkhazia, launched air and artillery strikes on Georgian troops to drive them out of a small part of the province they control.

Also, Ukraine warned Russia it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia’s coast.

“If those Russian ships leave that port in the Black Sea and if Ukraine decides that it is not going to allow those ships back into that port … that is a potentially much greater conflagration involving a wider regional area,” Levin said.

The White House sought to reassure that the administration — including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen — were talking to parties on both sides and trying for a diplomatic solution.

“We hope that there is no further bloodshed. There has been too much bloodshed already,” Jeffrey said.

Asked about the possibility of sending the U.S. military or other aid to Georgia, Jeffrey said, “Right now our focus is on working with both sides, with the Europeans and with a whole variety of international institutions and organizations to get the fighting to stop.”

Levin, too, did not see the chance of U.S. military involvement, though he said the U.S. needs to make clear to Russia that its action “is way out of line.”

“It has to be condemned and the world needs to stand against it,” Levin said.

Bush also tended to relations with China, again raising raised concerns to President Hu Jintao about how the host of the summer Olympics treats its own people.

Bush worshipped at a Beijing church and declared China has nothing to fear from expressions of faith. The message had the added punch of coming on China’s turf, as Bush has done before.

He managed time for a couple of marquee sporting events. With first lady Laura Bush, daughter Barbara and former President George H.W. Bush, he cheered from the stands of the Water Cube Olympic swimming venue. American Michael Phelps claimed the first of an expected string of gold medals by smashing his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley.

“God, what a thrill to cheer for you!” Bush told Phelps afterward.

At night, Bush watched the eagerly anticipated U.S.-China men’s basketball game.

Before the contest, he huddled with U.S. players in a corridor of the Olympic arena, putting his hand in with theirs and joining in a cheer, “One, two, three, U.S.A, go!”

The White House on Friday urged Russia and Georgia to peacefully resolve their dispute over South Ossetia.

“We urge restraint on all sides — that violence would be curtailed and that direct dialogue could ensue in order to help resolve their differences,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

She said the administration has been talking to both sides, trying to help resolve the issue.

“We will continue to be engaged,” Perino said in Beijing, where President Bush was attending the Olympics opening ceremonies.

Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said Bush discussed the issue with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when they chatted at a luncheon Friday for world leaders hosted by Chinese President Hu Jintao. Johndroe had no details about their talks.

Georgian troops launched a major military offensive Friday to regain control over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili accused Russia, which has close ties to the separatists, of bombing Georgian territory.

A Russian official denied the bombing. But Putin said the Georgian attack will draw retaliation and the Defense Ministry pledged to protect South Ossetians, most of whom have Russian citizenship.