I just watched C-Span's coverage of the Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing where Obama got to question Gen. Petraus and Amb. Crocker. Verdict? Impressive! As I listened to him, I could almost feel Gen. Petraus and Amb. Crocker acknowledge that this guy asking the questions might be their next commander in chief. You could see the respect, the deference in their tone and answers. You could almost imagine them standing up and saluting. As for the substance, it was like Obama was sincerely trying to find out a solution to the Iraq mess. His main point was, given the status quo, if the Iraq government could keep things basically as they are now, would that be considered enough of a 'success' for the US and mark the end of the occupation? As compared to the current pie-in-the-sky scenario of the Bush administration which seems to consider 'success' a moving target: depending on the circumstances, namely, what Bush and Cheney feel like doing when they wake up in the morning, what will let the Republicans retain the White House and prevent their people from getting indicted for war crimes. More...
Obama's turn was presaged by Sen. Biden kidding the other senators for mentioning the 'Senator from Illinois' to elicit applause, which caused the audience to chuckle. Man, it was like the senate chamber all knew they were waiting for the main act and were impatient to go to it.
And when Obama finally got the cameras on him (although the C-Span cameras were panning to him even before it was his turn--talk about a 'rock star'), there was a sudden surge of electricity. Man, that guy sure is pretty! And with his baritone voice melting all the hearts in the room, he expressed things sincerely, wisely, clearly, and made a big headway in getting valuable information from the witnesses as to what really matters: is Iraq currently stable enough to stand on its own and allow a withdrawal of troops? won't a timetable for withdrawal actually help the Iraq government to get serious with putting their house in order? will a realistic goal be, though messy, Iraq will be able to handle things on their own, Iran will be engaged to keep the region stable, Al Qaida presence will be kept manageable, Iraq won't be a danger to its neighbors.
Okay, here's the link to the C-Span extract of Obama:
http://www.c-span.org/...
and click on Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) Questions Gen. David Petraeus & Ambassador Ryan Crocker At a Senate For...
or with your RealVideo player, open location and paste this:
rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/iraq/iraq040808_obama.rm