Obama: Too Busy for the Senate
by arkansasdemocrat, Tue Feb 26, 2008 at 08:02:38 PM EST
Does anyone else think that this is a problem?
Tonight, when confronted with the reality that Obama has not held any hearings vis-a-vis NATO involvement in Afghanistan as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Europe subcommittee chair, Obama's response was that he hadn't done so because he has been running for President since he became chair of the subcommittee.
Turns out that not only has Obama not held a hearing on this topic, but that he has held no hearings at all as chair of this subcommittee.
Now, I understand enough about the Congress to understand that some subcommittees meet very infrequently, but seriously...
There is the threat of a new civil war with the Kosovo situation. The illegal proliferation of "loose nukes" from Russia continues. Britain has a new Prime Minister. The European Union is experiencing difficult growing pains. Parts of the EU have been pioneers on climate change, etc.
And not one single hearing since Obama took over as chairman 14 months ago. Amazing.
His answer tonight was even more startling. He could have said that nothing extremely pressing required a hearing, or that the subcommittee membership had decided not to meet, but instead, his response, which was probably the true response, was that he had been too busy...running for President. Couple that with myrad important votes that he has missed in his Presidential endeavour, and I think that the people of Illinois should question whether they are getting their money's worth in their Senator.
Salon.com noticed this two months ago. A few excerpts:
Doubts about Barack Obama's presidential credentials have crystallized during the past two weeks over his stewardship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs, which has convened no policy hearings since he took over as its chairman last January. That startling fact, first uncovered by Steve Clemons, who blogs on the Washington Note, prompted acid comment in Europe about the Illinois senator's failure to visit the continent since assuming the committee post, and even speculation that he had never traveled there except for a short stopover in London.
More:
But why should those questions matter to Americans who consider Senate hearings so much useless verbiage?...The simple answer to the first question is that Senate hearings do not merely provide occasions for grandstanding as many voters may suspect, but fulfill a critical purpose in providing information and perspective to lawmakers. In the Senate, the foreign relations subcommittees have few direct legislative responsibilities, but they have traditionally gathered substantive research for the committee itself and for the rest of the Senate.
Ritch points out that as subcommittee chair, Obama could have examined a wide variety of urgent matters, from the role of NATO in Afghanistan and Iraq to European energy policy and European responses to climate change -- and of course, the undermining of the foundations of the Atlantic alliance by the Bush administration. There is, indeed, almost no issue of current global interest that would have fallen outside the subcommittee's purview.
This guy is really unbelievable. I think that this assists Hillary Clinton's arguments about experience, and raises some serious questions about Obama's judgement.
The full article: http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/200
7/12/29/obama_europe/
Tags: Barack Obama (all tags)
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