With a hat tip to Joe Biden, we come to find out Barry Obama, he who thinks 143 days is enough experience to be President, attended only 1 of three important committee hearings on NATO's role in Afghanistan, and at that hearing only asked one question, totally unrelated to Afghanistan. Yet, this effite liberal self serving snob wants to be commander in chief and lead on Afghanistan? Come on now. Here's the skinny from Political Punch @ ABC:Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his allies have been hitting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, for not holding any hearings to examine the role of NATO in Afghanistan in his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs.
"He's never had a hearing," McCain said Tuesday, "so I am not surprised that all he has done is said, 'Well, we need more troops.'"
In a letter to Obama earlier this week, McCain-backing Sen. Jim DeMint R- SC, wrote, “With oversight of NATO relations and its role in Afghanistan, I believe it is time for us to focus closely on these issues,” DeMint wrote, suggesting a meeting of the subcommittee upon Obama’s return from a much anticipated trip abroad.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., had previously told Meet the Press that "the reason Obama didn't hold a hearing on NATO, I chair the committee. Every one of those committee hearings are held at full committee."
But today Biden decided to take his defense of Obama one step further, writing to DeMint that there have been plenty of hearings on European Affairs, they've just been held at the "full committee level."
"On the particular issue of NATO’s mission in Afghanistan," Biden wrote, "We have held three Full Committee hearings in the last 22 months: one under Senator Lugar’s chairmanship (September 21, 2006: “From Coalition to ISAF Command in Afghanistan: The Purpose and Impact of the Transition”), and two undermine (March 8, 2007: “Afghanistan: Time for a New Strategy?” and January 21, 2008: “Afghanistan: A Plan to Turn the Tide?”). At all three of these hearings, we were fortunate enough to have the expert testimony—in addition to other witnesses, both in and out of government— of former NATO commander and Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, Gen. James R. Jones (USMC, ret.)."
But Biden's letter brought attention to the fact that Obama did not attend two of those three hearings -- and for the third, on March 8, 2007, Obama only asked one question, one unrelated to Afghanistan.
How do I know the latter fact? From an August 2007 press release from Biden himself, when he was running for president.
"BIDEN CAMPAIGN CONGRATULATES SEN. OBAMA FOR JOHNNY-COME-LATELY POSITION," it read. Noting that at the March 2007 hearing, "Sen. Obama asked one question that was unrelated to Taliban or Afghanistan."
Thanks, Joe!
Well, he doesn't take his job seriously, and has terrible attendance...but at least he is clean and articulate, right, Joe?
