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

[Kalima]

No fair. No fun. Will it be fixed after comment interruptus?
I've cleared my cache, cleared my history, logged in/out, quit my browser, turned off my
computer for hours and just tossed my cookies and I'm still in limbo.

[calichic]

Me too. I can reply tersely, but can't make a new comment.

[Nochnoi]

That is so odd.... Others seem to be reporting various problems as well.....

[GrouchoMarxist]

Comment system still doesn't work right...it­'s been off-and-on for me.

[Kalima]

I can post but can't read past page 1. I think I have a touch of the Page 1
syndrome and need a doctor.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=r9NxlkP60oE

[grumpygranny66]

like I said on another thread, HuffPo has under cover rethugs working as mods. That is the reason nothing is getting posted.

[SCG]

Try using the" View Comments" button go to "Oldest first" then back to "Newest first" sometimes that helps to reset the pg. I have reply buttons now.

[Nochnoi]

There is the near full moon as well to add to the Twilight Zone feature...­.......

[RFBorjal]

And he says that he knows how to win wars. By the way, fighting in a losing war in Vietnam and being shot down doesn't look to me like a good evidence that he knows how to win wars.

[hlhicks]

How dare you people make fun of John McCain. He is a man who was held as a POW for five and a half years. That fact alone makes him exempt from any kind of criticism as to his foreign policy credentials. Besides I have it on good authority that he has been busy studying the political systems of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the problems currently facing Rhodesia. His grasp of the current state of international affairs is above reproach.

[LeSamourai]

You've got to give him a break. He still hasn't quite gotten over the Panjdeh Incident, what with him being an American spy at the time and almost being captured..­. well, he doesn't want to relive those memories of Afghanistan.

It takes time... give him another one hundred or so years... about the same amount of time that he would really not be ready to commit to not think about the total improbability of not pulling out of Iraq.

LeSamourai

Because words are like pretzels: you can twist 'em, or use them to choke a fella'.

[jeanrenoir]

You almost have to feel sorry for McCain. He and his staff are completely clueless about how the Net has transformed politics and made the old Republican lies and smears unworkable, because they're instantly exposed now to tens of millions of voters, making the scheming liars look like the scheming liars they are: not a winning image in America. It's as if the gods invented the Net and blogging to finally visit Nemesis on the decades-old hubris of Republican dirty-tricksters starting with the egregious Nixon. Now the liars just look like fools, incompetents, and laughing stocks. Day after day they are the equivalent of the kid with the dog ate my homework excuse.

[luvangelHussein330]

McCain hasn't shown up to vote in he senate since April 8th.

[borderorder]

Somebody explain how this guy gets 5% in opinion polls, let alone 45%?

[donaldw6]

NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, ...

... and The New Yorker.

[borderorder]

Commercial interest in a close race --- corporate influence? How is it the corporations don't see their health and wealth will wither along with the rest of us?

[borderorder]

"In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever."
Oscar Wilde

Oscar had a better comment than I did.

[GrouchoMarxist]

Skewed polls and skewed readings of the numbers...

[SCG]

He wasn't suppose to win the women's vote or PA and Ohio etc. Now he's polling in the lead, among women and those blue collar industrial states. He's in the lead in NY state, and new yorkers were polled if Hillary should be picked for VP ....answer no.

Quinnipiac , has a number of interesting polls over that last few months. And a well earned reputation for accuracy.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x271.xml

[borderorder]

Just like the Bible can be used to prove anything. Statistics is an art.

[VolvoBirkenstock]

Those are national polls. The state by state polls show a tsunami building.

National polls give equal weight to every response and do not factor in Electoral College apportionment

[GrouchoMarxist]

Yep...exac­tly. There's the state polls paint a picture that give McCain very little chance to reach 270 electoral votes.

The pundits have consistently been wrong about this election, because they're measuring things by old dynamics. In a change election, the status quo is the last to figure out what's happening.

[NoblesseOblige]

Things aren't quite as bad as they seem to be.

http://www.electoral-vote.com

[4wehttam]

I have no freaking clue......­......it truly boggles the mind. Some people either have no idea what McBush really stands for or their voting against the black candidate. That is the only explanation. How else would a republican be even close with an unpopular war, an unpopular president, someone who knows next to nothing about nothing except war. People should be ashamed of themselves.

[ExRepublican]

"Some people either have no idea what McBush really stands for "

You speak the truth. Fart right nuts are useless and dangerous.

And I might add, many folks have NO idea what Obama really stands for. None, nada, zip. It is NOT pretty.

Remember, all replies are hard copy.

Fire away.

[grumpygranny66]

4wehttam..­..that's because, they only watch FOX NEWS.

[calichic]

Let's see. The corporate media espouses Cain's Vietnam experience as an advantage in the realm of "national security" but in 04, Kerry's Vietnam experience was either ignored or denigrated and his opponent (who never served and set a new precedent in F'ing up our foreign policy and image around the world) is deemed to have the "national security" credentials. God it's so ironic when the media endlessly ponder why polls show Cain has the advantage in "keeping us safe" while they themselves help make this so.

[Buddhabman]

Huffington Post blog authors also need to also cross post at TownHall.com. Spread the word Conservatism is dead.

[Querent]

Actually, this is a deeply cunning move on MoreBush McCain's part. After agonizing over his failure to become President in 2000, he was blinded by the sudden insight: how to be President. Become George Bush! He has been busily transforming himself into Bush ever since, starting with voting against his own bill to prohibit torture. Now he is approaching the Nirvana-like state of ignorance of Bush, thereby transforming himself into an almost godlike expert on national security through his total ignorance of the diplomatic and military realities of world affairs. Could anything be more Bush-like than skipping all meetings on Afganistan for two years, in order to attain the brilliant revelation of how to win wars? McCain is just beyond the level of normal human consciousness. Be silent and marvel, all ye who gaze on him.

[kellygrrrl]

I'm sure he was very busy at the Czeckoslavkia Hearings

[mathme]

Wait, there's no... Oh, I see what you did there!

"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."

Does anyone else think that this is begging the question? People who are trying to teach logic should hold onto to questions implicit in this statement as a prime example of that fallacy.

[GrouchoMarxist]

My friends, we must protect Czeckoslavkia from the Nazi threat...e­rr...the Soviet threat...e­rr...the Iranian threat...

[Pyrrhus]

Yeah, but the whole time he was ranting on and on about Persia and Xerxes crossing the Bosporus and how he was an original member of the 300.

It was really embarrassing.

[borderorder]

And how he was able to maintain his committment by reciting the names of the Pittsburgh Steelers defense to King Leonidas.

[1028jenn]

And twice as many people actually think that McSame would make a better commander-in-chief ? Or more people believe that McBush knows more about foreign policy ? I just don't get it ! When will all this make it to the mainstream media ? Why doesn't this info get disseminated to the masses ?

[fiberoptimist]

What difference would it make if McBush attended the Afghani hearings? It's all Czechoslovakia to him.

[SCG]

FOR SALE: 74' Maverick

http://maverickheaven.homestead.com/files/74OrangeGrabberJunk.jpg

It's a real grabber, and very experienced. Has a clear vision, provided you hang your head out of the driver side door. Speaking of drivers, comes with additional backseat driver with lots of Joementum. It has no ear marks, or hearing aids, so scream loudly. Will take you for the ride of your life, brakes not included, but will steer straight to the gates of hell. Spare tire in trunk, if you think it will help?

Inquires welcome:
http://www.gop.com/

[GrouchoMarxist]

Well played! LOL

[Pyrrhus]

Does he come with an 8-track player?

[SCG]

The eight track to Saturday Night Fever is stuck in it.

Do you like "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gee's ?

[ContraEgoiste]

yeah but user report says it's been on a crash already and will not run past November.

[only1Demvoter]

ContraE : Crashed four times, ditched once in a lake.


-ralph

[mathme]

Aww... whata sad mavrick :(

[GrouchoMarxist]

Just remember, no matter how pathetic it seems, it's still a maverick filled with mavericky goodness.

[VolvoBirkenstock]

BitterBetty bought it, painted it black, and superglued a Jaguar hood ornament onto it.

[SCG]

That's sacrilege, to ruin a perfectly good Maverick and try to pass it off as something else.

[only1Demvoter]

Volvo : You forgot to mention the fetching WalMart plastic Faux Chrome wheel covers.


-ralph

[JoeBlough]

McCain simply is not worthy of the office. We made a mistake with Bush, lets not compound the problems with McCain.

[ndnndpendent]

Another fine pick by huffpo....­..........­.just what we want to see, old man head.....

[GrouchoMarxist]

4 more years! 4 more years! LOL

[ContraEgoiste]

4 more hairs! 4 more hairs!

[kellygrrrl]

I actually much prefer this view as opposed to the smiling frontal

[calichic]

Nothing like full frontal Cain. At least the V i a g r a is insured.