Clinton Skipped Senate Afghanistan Hearings To Campaign

Clinton Skipped Senate Afghanistan Hearings To Campaign

Mother Jones   |  David Corn   |   March 4, 2008 10:16 AM


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In the past few days, as Hillary Clinton has intensified her attacks on Barack Obama prior to the all-important primaries in Ohio and Texas, she has claimed that he has been "missing in action" regarding Afghanistan. Clinton has been trying to make the case that she's better prepped than Obama to be commander-in-chief and more qualified to answer the phone at 3:00 a.m. when crisis strikes. To prove her point, she notes that Obama, who chairs a foreign relations subcommittee covering European matters, has held not one hearing on how to bolster NATO in Afghanistan. This weekend she told reporters on her campaign plane that he has failed in a "responsibility that is directly related to Afghanistan." She urged the journos to grill Obama on this. She said that Afghanistan is "one of the two most important challenges internationally." And she added, "I think he was missing in action...because he was running for president."...

...Clinton ought to be careful about hurling stones in this area. As she always tells campaign crowds, she is a member of the Senate armed services committee. In February the committee held two hearings on Afghanistan. On February 8, it focused on appropriations for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was a witness. Eight days later, the committee zeroed in on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, holding a two-part hearing examining recent reports on Afghanistan. Key witnesses included senior officials from the State Department and the Pentagon responsible for the administration's Afghanistan policy. Clinton attended neither of these hearings. She was on the campaign trail.


 
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That's what whores do, it's all about money and doing whatever they have to in order to get it, shameless, diabolical political whore.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:29 AM on 03/05/2008

There's a big difference between not attending a meeting as one of many invitees and not ever holding a single meeting as the chairman.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:41 PM on 03/04/2008

That makes no sense.

A subcommittee is called a subcommittee because it is part of a full committee. In Obama's case, the full foreign relations committee has held many hearings on NATO, so there was no need for separate subcommittee hearings on NATO.

Also, the subcommittee on Europe is called the subcommittee on Europe because it has jurisdiction over Europe. Last time I checked, Afghanistan was not in Europe. Thus, heaings on Afghanistan were held in subcommittees that had jurisdiction over that part of the world.


    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:42 PM on 03/05/2008
- Ides I'm a Fan of Ides permalink

I think we'll get a lot of these as time goes on. There had to be a reason Hillary didn't attack him on these issues earlier, and I don't think it was common courtesy. It had to be because she didn't want to get smeared in the process.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:12 PM on 03/04/2008

It's really not surprising. She tends to try to smear people on the vary things she herself is guilty of.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:57 PM on 03/04/2008

Hey, look at the picture of Hillary on this post. It looks like Huffpo has darkened it quite a bit. What ar they up to? Are they trying to make Hillary look ominous and evil?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:50 PM on 03/04/2008
photo

Do you have the original picture? I guess I could, at this juncture, say something about how baseless accusation has become the final resort of a floundering campaign.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 03:56 PM on 03/04/2008

which part of sarcasm do you not understand. My comment was in relation to the post about the supposedly "darkened" Obama picture.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:55 PM on 03/04/2008

I think she looks nice in the photo. That personality comes across well; if Huff wanted to smear her, there are many of her other personalites caught on film that show the true sinister, ugly and unstable Hill. "Shame on you!" comes to mind.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:05 PM on 03/04/2008


good point.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:15 PM on 03/04/2008


As an earlier commentator pointed out, HRC is a member of Armed Services, not the chairperson; BHO is chair of the subcommittee in charge of NATO/Afghanistan oversight. He's the one in charge and if he doesn't have time for the responsibilities of the position, he should resign and let another member be chairperson.

I'd also like to add that Senator Clinton is chairperson of the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, where, as Joe Wilson recently pointed out , she has convened extensive hearings.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:30 PM on 03/04/2008

That is NOT true. Obama is the chair of the subcommittee on European Affairs. Please visit http://foreign.senate.gov/subcommittee.html and verify this for yourself. Contrary to the mis-information that the Clinton campaign provides, that subcommittee is NOT "in charge of NATO/Afghanistan". While this subcommittee oversees US involvement _with_ NATO, discussion on NATO's activities in Afghanistan take place under John Kerry's subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:54 PM on 03/04/2008

And what exactly have those hearings on Superfund and Environmental Health accomplished? Did they disarm nuclear weapons, like the Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non Proliferations Act did? Did they make public government records, like the Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act did?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:46 PM on 03/05/2008
- joja I'm a Fan of joja permalink

Whaaaaaa????!!! This cannot be!

Now, Hillary will have to figure out a way to blame this on Obama.

Or the biased media.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:30 PM on 03/04/2008

Of course she skipped the hearing, she's the candidate of "expereince" not "judgement".

Sheesh - aren't you guys listening to the campaign at ALL?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:22 PM on 03/04/2008

But I am sure it was okay for your guy to do it! right?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:01 PM on 03/04/2008

Umm, Obama isn't on the committee in question - Please do not pass GO and try again.
BTW: Your canididate brought up EXPEREINCE - those who live by the "soundbite" shall die by it. Image what John McCain would do with this argument.

Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee:
DEMOCRATS

Carl Levin (Michigan)
Chairman

Edward M. Kennedy (Massachusetts)
Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia)
Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut)
Jack Reed (Rhode Island)
Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii)
Bill Nelson (Florida)
E. Benjamin Nelson (Nebraska)
Evan Bayh (Indiana)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York)
Mark L. Pryor (Arkansas)
Jim Webb (Virginia)
Claire McCaskill (Missouri)

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:08 PM on 03/04/2008

The MSM won't talk about this though because they're afraid of being accused of bias against Clinton.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:18 PM on 03/04/2008

oops! it must have slipped her mind, she was too busy campaigning to get McCain elected at the time.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:12 PM on 03/04/2008

She skipped the FISA vote as well and she was right there in DC. Guess she didn't want to upset the GOP.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:44 AM on 03/04/2008

I think she skipped the FISA vote because she forgot Poland.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:25 PM on 03/04/2008

Does Hillary Clinton not owe the public some honesty. She should freely admit that she still believes in the Iraq war like McCain, she still believes with Joe Lieberman that we should bomb Iran, she has no compassion for womaen and children and supports more cluster bombs, she is ready to accept outright racists in her campaign, she is willing to send out emails saying Obama is a muslim, she is more than willing to scare ppoor uneducated older women into submission, she is willing to say that her and McCain only are worthy due to their experience but she is unwilling to make her income tax returns public.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:11 AM on 03/04/2008

About the whole Bombing Iran thing ... before commenting on her foreign policy you should read it. Google Foreign Affairs it will bring up the journal's website and type in hillary clinton . the article entitled "Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century" is the one pertaining to her Foreign Policy for her possible presidency. Barack Obama's is there too. His is entitled "Renewing American Leadership" They are both very similar, Barack's is more moving with lots of quotes and Hillary's is laid out a little dryer.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:21 AM on 03/04/2008

The key difference: Clinton is a member of her committee ... Obama is a Chair of his committee. She has actually done work on the Armed Services Committee where as Obama has not on his. What she was pointing out was that he jumped on as chair at the start of his campaign for additional resume material and has not done anything yet with the position. Obviously she will try to spin it to get some extra political mileage but the fact is that he really hasn't acted as chair on the committee and should not be using it as credentials.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:09 AM on 03/04/2008

I was going to post a comment, but you said it better than I could have.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:58 AM on 03/04/2008

Attack now apologize latter, if necessary. HRC counts on the American public having a very short attention span.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:44 AM on 03/04/2008

What?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:25 PM on 03/04/2008

Clinton doesn't care whether the accusations she hurls are accurate, fair or will come back to smack her in the back of her head. She's desperate, so anything that will help her survive to fight another is okay with her. More of the same old politics. And she wonders why Obama supporters express reservations about voting for her in the general election if she should become the nominee.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:41 AM on 03/04/2008

you mean like Obama mailing a flier in Ohio about NAFTA that attributes a quote to Hillary that she never said even though he knew she never said it because he was made aware that it was wrong when he used the same flier in Wisconsin?

You mean like claiming your campaign never met with Canadian officials, but then the memo comes out that you did?

You mean like saying thet Jay Rockefeller read the NIE report on Irag before casting his vote against the war except for the fact that Rockefeller voted FOR the war resolution. Or how about in that same statement claimimg Rockefeller was chairman of the senate cmte, but he wasn't.

How about promising to take tax money to fund your general election campaign if the repug will do the same, but now saying welll, maybe not....

These are all examples of the politics of change?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 03:07 PM on 03/04/2008

The quote may have been misleading, but the rest of it was true!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 03:22 PM on 03/04/2008
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