Obama's European problem

[ccpup]

from the article:

That is why congressional hearings matter, and why a subcommittee chairmanship represents a significant responsibility. Knowledge is not just power but the fundamental requirement for either house of Congress to act as an equal of the executive branch in government.

Should Obama wonder whether he ought to have bothered with his subcommittee, he could ask his friendly rival Joe Biden, D-Del., who chaired the Europe subcommittee for many years during the Cold War. Biden effectively exploited the chairmanship to transform himself from a junior member into one of the Senate's most knowledgeable experts on arms control, nuclear weapons, European attitudes toward America and the Soviet Union, the European Union's policies, and the role of NATO, which also comes under the subcommittee's mandate. As a result, Biden starred in Senate hearings on the SALT II arms treaties and eventually established himself as a leading national voice on foreign policy.

"I wouldn't call it a neglect of duty but a missed opportunity to explore issues that will be of fundamental importance to the next administration," says ambassador John Ritch, who served for two decades as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's senior staffer on European affairs and East-West relations, before going on to represent the Clinton administration at the United Nations organizations in Vienna.

...

-- but this is the paragraph that shows, for me, the opportunity Obama overlooked: --

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.

...

(more at link)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/12/29/obama_europe/print.html

[Didereaux]

1. Blown opportunities. Do we need more?

[1corona4u]

2. Wow....is this a credible source?

Obama's European problem
The senator may have traveled widely, but the critically important subcommittee on Europe has languished under his leadership.

By Joe Conason


Presidential candidate Barack Obama holds a round-table discussion Dec. 20 in Exeter, N.H.

Dec. 29, 2007 |

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.

[MethuenProgressive]

3. Bottom line: ObamaNation doesn't care/If nominated the GOP will hit hard with this.

The GOP will tear him up on every issue ObamaNations is ignoring.

[ccpup]

4. crickets from the BamaBots n/t

[ArkySue]

5. Bottom line

Obama is not doing his job in the Senate. What guarantee is there that he will do his job if elected President?

[ccpup]

it certainly appears that way, doesn't it?

It does take a certain audacity (fun word to use, isn't it?) to run for President before your butt's even had a chance to make an indentation in your Senate Seat. And if he was given this extraordinary opportunity by the Dem Leadership -- and I'm still not clear how the process of choosing Chairmanships and such work -- to make a substantive name for himself and he, instead, chooses to drop the ball to run for President, that Leadership should be pissed.

How many first term Senators are GIVEN a chance like this? I'm surprised one of his opponents hasn't run a commercial showing the dates of World Events where Congresspeople might have benefited -- even slightly -- from the information gathered from a meeting of his Subcommittee followed by where Obama was on that date and what he was doing.

More times than not, fund raising or making a speech in support of his Presidential Run.

[desi]

8. I believe that you can trace it all back to the Dem Convention.

Obama did a masterful job on his speech (but don't forget that he was reading it off a teleprompter) at the convention and the PTB saw in him a star in the making. A "diamond-in-the-rough" if you will. That speech opened doors and Obama is no dummy and used this new found "star power" to further his ambitions and here we are.

Some saw his performance with Blitzer as him "stuttering" but if you listened carefully to his replies in the debates you would have noticed that he did that quite often. IMHO he is simply not equipped or ready to answer tough questions on the fly, and honestly, much like Bush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39gy7-p8Wsw

K&R

[ccpup]

10. I've always said --

and have been slammed for doing so -- that no one makes a better speech than Obama. If it's off a teleprompter and he's rehearsed, he can incredibly inspirational. But a good speech does not a good President make. If he had greater experience and foreign policy know-how, I'd have more hope that he'd be the "right" Nominee for us. But the repuglicans will eat him alive on the experience question, no matter how many great speeches he makes.

[desi]

12. Which reminds me of the IL Senate campaign

Obama v Keyes. Talk about inspirational...

[ccpup]

13. and this was after the original

Repuglican opponent -- the name escapes me now -- had to pull out because he was going through a nasty divorce and some mighty salacious details were being released. The IL GOP was already hobbled ... otherwise they never would have accepted as their Nominee Alan Keyes -- who had never and did not at the time of the Election -- even LIVE in the State!

With events like that, I think the GOP just wrote IL off for the year. Talk about a hard race to win! :eyes:

[desi]

14. His first opponent was Ryan

and then the Repuglican's tried to get Mike Ditka to enter the race so Keyes was the third victim. Now Ditka v Obama would have been a hoot...

[Hippo_Tron]

16. Sorry but the presidency isn't something you earn, it's something you win

Just because you think Hillary has earned the job, doesn't mean she gets it. We have elections to decide that.

[rodeodance]

7. seems he barely travelled to europe--bush had the same problem.

[DemKR]

6. K&R

[CyberPieHole]

9. The Obamanations are oddly silent on this thread...I wonder why?

could they all be ignoring their candidates lack of experience and his lackadaisical attitude towards his responsibilities? What makes ANYONE think that Obama will treat the office of the Presidency with any more respect than he has his elected seat in the Senate? Obama is NOT fit to be Senator, let alone President of the U.S. of A.

:kick: and recommend

[Evergreen Emerald]

11. He did not do his job.

Imagine being the subcommittee chair and doing NOTHING.

What a resume.

[chascarrillo]

15. Obama held two hearings. Hillary held three of her subcommittee.

Big difference.

:eyes:

[ccpup]

17. the two hearings were regarding Ambassadors, I think

and I don't know anything about the Hillary hearings, but I suspect they were more substantive and informative than Ambassadorships.

What the BamaBots are neglecting to realize is that Hillary -- Senatorial experience alone -- had one term and the experience one gains from that under her belt and was racing toward a re-election for her second term by a wide margin.

Obama, a first term Senator with little experience and no foreign policy credentials to speak of, was given a golden opportunity to help correct that by Joe Biden which he then ignored in favor of running for President.

Nothing can go back and change the past and the Obama Campaign better come up with a good reason -- other than "it's no big deal" or it's "desperate" for an opponent to mention it -- for his lack of focus with that Chairmanship, or the MSM will make a big deal of it should he be the Nominee. And the Voters will have yet another chapter in the "lack of experience" storyline that will be pushed during the General.

[chascarrillo]

18. Given Bush's choice of Ambassadors...

... I wouldn't be too quick to assume that these were insubstantial hearings.

The hearings that Clinton held as chair may not look glitzy on the surface, but they dealt with Superfund oversight, the EPA's 9/11 response, and EPA's Environmental Justice program. I don't know about the last one, but the other two are definitely very important issues. (9/11 is obvious, but the Bush adminstration has done its best to dismantle Superfund over the past few years.) You can watch all the hearings via streaming video on the committee website.

[ccpup]

19. thank you for that info

I was actually unaware she was Chair of a Subcommittee and, time permitting, will take a look at the hearings on the website. And you're right about the Ambassador picks. I certainly hope the Subcommittee asked tough questions and didn't let the Nominee get away with weak or dishonest answers. I trust they did their jobs well with Obama at the helm.

[Beacool]

20. If Obama had spent so much energy doing the job that he was elected to do,

then he would be a good senator by now instead of the below average senator that he is at present. His voting record prior to the campaign is also not stellar. I get the feeling that this man entered the senate with the sole purpose of running for the presidency without bothering to learn the ropes of his job, nor even waiting to complete a full term before seeking the golden prize.

I won't call him an "empty suit" because that's a right wing line, but to me Obama is all talk and little substance.

[ccpup]

21. I agree

He was given a great opportunity by the people of IL to build a Presidential resume with his US Senator position. The fact that he ignored this -- as well as the golden gift that was his Chairmanship to this Subcommittee -- in his impatience to run for President doesn't exactly inspire in one a sense that he would act with due diligence in what is arguably the most important job in the World.

Hillary, by comparison, has 35 years under her belt of policy work, policy meetings, bringing disparate elements together to find a common ground -- look at the work she had with changing the Education System in Arkansas -- as well as the constant exposure to the realities of a position of National Importance and what is expected of one.

Obama -- due to the fact that his US Senate career is still so new -- doesn't yet grasp the responsibilities of the job. He's spent most of his time campaigning for President!

One can have nightmares over what the GOP and the MSM will make out of all this. And I don't think a stirring speech is going to be enough to disguise these facts.