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Sen. Clinton Asks Questions at Armed Services Committee Hearing [Updates & Great Reviews!]

By SusanUnPC on April 8, 2008 at 2:32 PM in Armed Services Committee, Hillary Clinton, Iraq

3:00 p.m. PST UPDATE & HIGH MARKS FOR SEN. CLINTON: From Time magazine’s Jay Carney — however, I take great exception to his last sentence, even though it too is a great compliment to Sen. Clinton!

Senator Hillary Clinton just wrapped up her turn asking questions of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. In tone, demeanor and command of the facts, she was – I thought – very impressive. Without grandstanding, she fufilled her oversight role and made some soberly effective points about the failures of the surge and the problems with an unlimited U.S. commitment in Iraq. General Petraeus’ marble-mouthed answer on the “conditions” that would have to prevail for him to recommend a change in strategy was a low point for him. Her performance was a reminder that a Clinton loss in the presidential race would be the Senate’s gain.

EARLIER UPDATES: The Washington Post has the transcript of Sen. Clinton’s questions and the answers of Gen Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. BELOW the fold is one of the many news stories popping up since Sen. Clinton questioned the two men.

Great thanks to Gabriele for sending this video link.

UPDATE: Here’s a news story via CTV.ca: “Clinton, McCain split on Iraq withdrawal question.”

Democratic hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton told a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing Tuesday that she thinks “it’s time to begin an orderly process of withdrawing our troops, start rebuilding our military, and focusing on the challenges posed by Afghanistan, the global terrorist groups and other problems that confront America.”

In his opening statement, presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain said: “I do not want to keep our troops in Iraq a minute longer than necessary to secure our interest there.

“Our goal, my goal, is an Iraq that no longer needs American troops. And I believe we can achieve that goal, perhaps sooner than many imagine. But I also believe that the promise of withdrawal of our forces, regardless of the consequences, would constitute a failure of political and moral leadership.”

Sen. Barack Obama, the other Democratic presidential hopeful, will get a chance to speak this afternoon when Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. …

Check out more news stories on Sen. Clinton’s questions of Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus.

But, before I add any additional news stories, I’m going to post this e-mail I just received from the campaign:

Dear Susan,

With 14 days to go until the people of Pennsylvania vote, the Obama campaign has decided to go all-out. They’re trying to end the race for the White House with an unyielding media blitz. Right now, we’re being outspent 4-1 on Pennsylvania television.

So now, here’s what we have to ask ourselves: Have we come this far in our history-making contest for the Democratic nomination only to see the race decided not by the quality of our ideas but by the size of our opponent’s media budget?

Not a chance — not if you and I have anything to say about it. And, believe me, we do. Your contribution of $25 has made a big difference in helping carry us this far and now I need your help again. If you contribute $38 now, we can make sure we get our message out to win in Pennsylvania and beyond. ….

  • Blue State Girl

    As if anyone needed another reason to donate: Over at TalkLeft, Big Tent Democrat reports that the latest SUSA poll puts Hillary at 18 points over Obama in Pennsylvania, 56% to 38%.

    The complete absence of movement among whites and among women is striking. Among white voters, Clinton polled at 61% in all 3 tracking polls. Among women, Clinton was at 62% a month ago, 62% last week, and 61% today. These two unwavering core constituencies help make Clinton so formidable in the Keystone state.

    This is incredibly good news in the face of Obama outspending her on TV ads–he hasn’t made a dent. More important, if these numbers hold and she does win by that large a margin, it will be impossible for Obama to spin it positively. It would be a huge accomplishment for her.

    • John

      The media is doing it’s best to shield us from polls like this, thanks. If I called CNN or MSNBC and told them I had a poll showing Obama ahead in PA, they’d probably put me on the air no questions asked. The only polls they care about are the ones showing Obama gaining. When Obama drops, they look the other way.

      Taegan Goddard is especially good at finding the outlier poll completely at odds with the rest, if it’s favorable to Obama. He’d give us the results of a Hershey Park straw poll of nursery schools if they showed Obama competitive with Hillary.

  • http://www.liberalrapture.com/ John Smart

    Does anyone have video of this:
    http://www.liberalrapture.com/

    get me more white people! we need more white people!

  • IndyRobin

    Susan and Larry,

    I wanted to make sure that you recieved this message
    and say thanks again for playing our Mad as Hell Video.

    Comment by IndyRobin | 2008-04-08 16:28:59

    Hi Susan,

    Just want to say thanks so much for putting the video up and your beauiful piece on Edward R Murrow.

    Of all the pieces in the video it was the one I was worried about. Our Hillary, can damn well take care of herself, as we all know but I really wanted to stress how deeply we have failed as a society to follow the hopes and dreams of Edward R Murrow.

    This video took four weeks of my life that I do not care to revisit; it broke my heart day after day listening to these clips. I made this video, not because I wanted to, but because I had no other choice.

    It is my understanding that the video has now gone “viral” 23,000 viewers on youtube, 1,000 comments, 22 front page bloggs, including NewsDay.
    Please keep sending it out. This message needs to be heard.

    Thanks everybody. Your thoughtful feedback is helpful and appreciated

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      You did an incredibly good job. You’re the “talk of the town.” The Internet town.

      Now let’s make sure your video breaks the four million mark set by that godawful movie-star “Yes I Can” Obama video, which I posted here as a joke — because it is so absurd.

      I hope everyone who has a blog posts your video. It is already going “viral,” but needs to keep getting pushed so everyone sees it.

  • AmyinSC

    I got that letter today, too – thanks for posting yours, Susan – I was going to post it here if you hadn’t. So, I’m in!

    YOUR CONTRIBUTION RECEIPT:

    DATE: April 8, 2008 1:45 PM CDT
    NAME: Amy
    AMOUNT: $75.00

  • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

    I just added a great update — a hot review from Time magazine’s Jay Carney on Hillary’s questions and comments during today’s Armed Services Committee hearing — at the top of this story. WTG, Hillary!

    • mel

      You doing the same for Obama with his commitee on Europe and NAFTA for equal fair billing Susan?

  • Five Thirty

    I read the transcript at the Washington Post website and agree with others that the really brilliant thing that HRC did was to ask if the US Congress could have the same right as the Iraqi Parliament to see the lastest agreement between the 2 countries. Clever and telling!

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      Wow. I haven’t had time to read it yet. If you can, please quote the part of the transcript where she says that. Thanks!

      • Five Thirty

        http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/iraq_hearing_040808.html
        (CLINTON:)….Let me ask you: Do you anticipate that the Iraqi government would submit such an agreement to the Iraqi parliament for ratification?
        CROCKER: The Iraqi government has indicated it will bring the agreement to the Council of Representatives. At this point, it is not clear, at least to me, whether that will be for a formal vote or whether they will repeat the process they used in November with the declaration of principles, in which it was simply read to the members of the parliament.
        CLINTON: Does the administration plan to submit this agreement to our Congress?
        CROCKER: At this point, Senator, we do not anticipate that the agreements will have within them any elements that would require the advise-and-consent procedure. We intend to negotiate this as an executive agreement.
        CLINTON: Well, Ambassador Crocker, it seems odd, I think, to Americans who are being asked to commit for an indefinite period of time the lives of our young men and women in uniform, the civilian employees, whom you rightly referenced and thanked, as well as billions of dollars of additional taxpayer dollars, if the Iraqi parliament may have a chance to consider this agreement, that the United States Congress would not.
        And as you may know, I currently have legislation requiring the Congress to have an opportunity to consider such an agreement before it is signed. And I would urge you to submit such an agreement to the Congress for full consideration….

  • mel

    Anyone who thinks Obama will pull out of Iraq is listening to fairytales!

    With money bundlers and contributors such as General Electric, a major war profiteer of aircraft equipment (owners of NBC) and General Dynamics who has seen both sales a profit increase in leaps and bounds from the war will certainly demand payback if Obama wins!

    James Crown, Obama’s financial co-chair in Illinois and on the nation finance commitee is a major stake holder of General Dynamics and a major bundler for Obama along with being a major stakeholder in JPMorgan Chase. The guy from Maytag fame of jobs off to mexico while Obama did nothing but give a speech!

    Will the news bring it up, no way, someone needs to bring out the TRUTH about Obama and soon!

    Follow Obama’s voting records, it proves who he is working for!

  • AF catfish

    OK so Obama had all this time to prepare for this hearing, and his questions were really basic. This was his chance to put to rest any doubts about his gravitas.

  • Gloria

    With the foreign news emphasis, I’d like to take the opportunity to introduce my new version of Power Plays: The World Energy Watch at
    http://insightanalytical.wordpress.com/

    POWER PLAYS: THE WORLD ENERGY WATCH FOR APRIL 9, 2008
    Posted on April 8, 2008 by GRL

    The World Energy Watch presents excerpts of analysis and recent news reports highlighting the activities of the players involved in the power struggle for the world’s remaining energy resources and energy sustainability.

    1//A sobering look at our future oil situation from Energy and Oil by Byron King tops the news in this week’s edition. Looks like both domestic and imported oil supplies will be drying up by 2025. Then what?

    The U.S. Oil Supply — A Look At Our Future Oil Needs

    New discoveries and new wells just cannot keep up with depletion of older oil fields. By 2025, U.S. daily oil output will be a fraction of its current level (probably down to about 2-3 million barrels per day), even with an aggressive program of drilling offshore and in Alaska — which is not happening, in any case. … . Also by 2025, U.S. imports will almost certainly decline. The oil will not be available to buy and import from world markets. Not everyone agrees with this. In one fanciful projection from 2005, the U.S. DOE forecast that “Total U.S. gross petroleum imports are projected to increase in the reference case from 12.3 million barrels per day in 2003 to 20.2 million in 2025.” Maybe in somebody’s dreams, but my view is that this is one projection that will never come true. … . Really, by 2025, the rest of the oil-producing world will simply lack the product to export. This will be due to reasons of depletion on a global scale, and fast-growing internal demand in oil-producing nations. Gasoline consumption in places as diverse as Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia is just soaring, so there is less net oil available for export. … . So what will happen in 2025? Will the U.S. pump its own oil? No, it’s not there. Will the U.S. continue to import large volumes? No, it won’t be available. The bottom line is that conventional oil sources for the U.S. — domestic output and imports — are simply drying up.

    Read more stories….China and Syria, Iraqi “potato seller” now making a lot of US money protecting oil pipelines and US troops…..

  • Mikey

    I was working and did not have time to watch the Inquisition. However, I did hear that Sen. Clinton couldn’t be courteous to other committee members with her full attention, instead, catching up on a cat nap or two. Is it that the campaign is too taxing and she cannot manage her time properly? (Clinton 1 was well known for not maintaining a schedule). Or is that she has no time for others, including other Dems? If elected, how much time would she have for the common US citizen when the first item on her agenda will be to initiate her legacy program, since Clinton 1 left nothing but a trail of disasters.

    I breezed quickly through the comments above and I didn’t notice anyone trying to spin her neglect and elitist berth. Enough said.

    On another note, what will we do with two queens? Will the Catholic one plot to overthrow the sitting one? Will history repeat itself?!?!

    • Five Thirty

      Q: do you get your info from Rush Limbaugh?

      • Mikey

        A: Only the ‘queen’ reference, as in Queen Bee. The rest is as original as Sen. Clinton is not. I get what I can from multiple sources, so not to be brain washed from one position.

        Her position is very close to Sen. Obama’s; socialized medicine, tax the high earners, and promise more entitlements for votes. Both do not state they will reduce the military, however, that single digit percentage item of the budget gets in their way of funding more costly initiatives.

        At least I’m not lying about pregnant women who are refused care and both the infant and mother die due to lack of quality medical care. If you are going to tell a lie, you better have an excellent backstop. And the Bosnia sniper caper; how ignorant do you think the American people are? I’m waiting for Sen. Clinton to claim she invented the CAT SCAN device.

        Respectfully

  • Five Thirty

    You get your info from the same place Dubya will find those darn weapons of mass destruction – in the GOP’s imagination!