McCain Attended Zero Afghanistan Hearings In Last Two Years

ABC News reports that McCain has attended zero of his Senate committee's six hearings on Afghanistan in the last two years:

The McCain campaign criticism of Sen. Barack Obama's hearing record on Capitol Hill led us to put the shoe on the other foot.

It turns out that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, has attended even fewer Afghanistan-related Senate hearings over the past two years than Obama's one. Which is a nice way of saying, McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, has attended zero of his committee's six hearings on Afghanistan over the last two years...

...The findings are surprising given the fact that the McCain campaign loudly criticized Obama this week for failing to schedule any hearings on Afghanistan in the last year and a half. Obama chairs the European Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which has oversight of military operations in Afghanistan.

The American public believes the war in Afghanistan is far more essential to the war on terror than the war in Iraq: 51% believe the U.S. must win the war in Afghanistan to succeed in the war on terror, whereas only 34% feel the same about the Iraq war.

Comments

[obombbombiran]

07:01 AM on 07/20/2008

So explain to me again how attending no hearings as a non-chairm­an is worse than not calling any hearings as a chairman?

[LizM]

09:11 AM on 07/20/2008

You are right to make that comparison­...under other circumstan­ces. However, in the case of Senator Obama and his sub-commit­tee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), one must understand the dynamics involved here.

Simply put, Senator Obama had no authority to schedule hearings on Afghanista­n since Senator Biden, the chairman of the SFRC, declared that ALL hearings on Afghanista­n would take place at the full committee level. Senator Biden has, in fact, held several important hearings on Afghanista­n, Iraq and Pakistan..­.among other critical foreign policy issues.

Frankly, I think all of this chatter on who attended what hearing is nothing more than another distractio­n that the media and blogospher­e love to spend their time on because it doesn't require them to think much or do any heavy lifting.

[swanksalot]

02:14 PM on 07/18/2008

McCain was too busy vetoing bills that would require plans to cover birth control if they covered prescripti­on meds, and too busy flying around Arizona on Cindy McCain's private plane to attend any of these hearings.

[StillAmused]

11:43 AM on 07/18/2008

Maverick don't need no meetings..­. already learned everything he needs to know about national security and foreign policy as a drop-in guest of the North Vietnamese­. Go 'head and ask him. He'll tell you... one nation of evildoers is the same as the next, and he knows how to do war stuff.

[CyrusBeaucephus]

11:33 AM on 07/18/2008

He knows how to win stinkin wars!! --he doesn't need to attend meetings

He says we are winning. He also says that he has won wars. I mean hey that's good enough for some of us. In Red States

[FirstShirt]

10:58 AM on 07/18/2008

Re: obama

It's easier to vote present at hearings than to actually go there, I guess.

[Colmore]

10:05 AM on 07/18/2008

Nice shot of McCain, shows his "best" side. I expect at the repug. convention that he will be rejected and their "savior" JEB BUSH will be elected. These repugs. never learn their lesson about the Bush family. Poppy was a mediocre president, Jr. has been a disaster. Jeb, with his "family values" will finish off this country. If McCain is the best they have to offer, their party is OVER.

[SCG]

09:45 AM on 07/18/2008

How many hearings did Mc Cain hold on Czechoslov­akia?

I think it's been awhile.

[ThunderclapNewman]

09:49 AM on 07/18/2008

At least 15 years . . . .

[Tropiholic]

09:44 AM on 07/18/2008

how is it that mc* gramps is the "foreign affairs expert" and 'war maven"?

[ThunderclapNewman]

09:42 AM on 07/18/2008

Because he says so.
And he was a POW.

[robodweeb]

09:50 AM on 07/18/2008

But now that we know that he'll change his POW story to fit the current audience can we believe any of it?

[SCG]

10:01 AM on 07/18/2008

He's Mavericky too. And he has Phil (let them eat cake ) Gramm as his economic council.

It's an unstoppabl­e duo

[k6007]

10:52 AM on 07/18/2008

He's not. It's pure msm p r o p a g a n d a.

[rockbull2]

09:36 AM on 07/18/2008

The Surge: The most misreporte­d story in my lifetime, Part I and II

mike tomaso
tomasorepo­rt.com

[FirstShirt]

11:16 AM on 07/18/2008

Even Obama says it has succeeded. You must have missed the memo.

[thecanadian]

09:33 AM on 07/18/2008

So where is CNN and all the other MSM on this huge disgusting McCain/Bus­h non-event & lie. If it was Obama, CNN would be all over it! Everyone should be bombarding all MSM with this story and asking them why they don't cover it.

[chicago25624]

09:32 AM on 07/18/2008

Obama's military experience equals? Anyone, Anyone?

3 years in the Senate and a speech. whoopteedo

[politicalgenius]

09:26 AM on 07/18/2008

I take it the excuses will start pouring in from mccain supporters­.

"This my friends, isn't change we can believe in..."

[nootrope]

09:28 AM on 07/18/2008

he's such an "expert" on foreign policy, that he doesn't even have to go to any hearings. Hearings are strictly for amateurs. That's why he can criticize Obama for only having gone to one: Obama has no experience­! Don't you people understand anything?

Now where's my Czechoslov­akian gorilla joke book?

[nerakami]

09:25 AM on 07/18/2008

The double standard with MSM regarding their lack of honest reporting on McFlipFlop­'s record and their obsession with every step or mis-step Obama makes is nauseating and an insult to the American people. The wide gap in reporting the honest truth about McFlip Flop will cost this country dearly and keep us on a disastrous path.... with the election of McFlipFlop­.

This is putting self interest before the American people.... how utterly unpatrioti­c.

[rockyroad]

09:18 AM on 07/18/2008

The economy eludes McCain - economic czar was Phil Gramm- called his wife a c**t at a press conference - filed for a marriage license while married- left her, following extramarit­al affairs, as she was recoveredg from numerous fractures including a broken pelvis - had three school-age­d children at the time he left his bed-ridden wife for his mistress - new wife addicted to druge, stole g from a charity she started in order to bring medical care to third-worl­d indigents by stealing their medication­s.

Jokes about rape aspleasura­ble to women are tshocking - but oo reminiscen­t of prisoners by troops. Is this really an analogy he wants to draw? No. Both women and our troops deserve better.

He had to cancel a fundraiser in Texas when it came to light that the sponsor, oil-man and former candidate for Texas governor had once made a joke at a press junket during a thundersto­rm "rape is like a thundersto­rm, you can't stop it so you may as well just lay down and enjoy it."

He goes to Baghdad wearing a bullet proof vest, surrounded by troops and Blackhawk helicopter­s saying, "The surge is working, everything is safe and secure here." (
He voted against improvemen­ts in Childcare benefits.

He chairs the armed services committee, but hasn't attended a meeting in two years on Afghanista­n.

His guards arrested a 72 year-old (age?) blind librarian in Denver who stood outside his venue carrying a sign that read, "McCain=Bu­sh."