From the look on his face, it’s possible that Barack Obama was plotting the entire general-election strategy in his head this morning while he was waiting for the ambassador nominees to finish talking.
As he chaired today’s confirmation hearing for five ambassador nominees in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama started out by giving the hearing his full attention. But as the opening statements droned on, he got that faraway, droopy-eyelid look that veterans of lengthy congressional hearings know too well.
He even praised one of his colleagues, Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, for “setting a good example for brevity” in his own opening statement.
Let's face it – there’s a bit of culture shock when you've gotten used to packing huge arenas at election rallies and then you re-enter the world of tiny hearing rooms and statements read in monotones. Even with the packed audience in Dirksen and the digital cameras flashing, it just wasn’t the same.
Not that Obama didn’t give it his best shot. He asked Kurt D. Volker, the nominee to be the U.S. Permanent Representative on the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whether he agreed with a recent statement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the Iraq war was causing turbulence within NATO.
Obama noted that “we continue to be resource-strapped in Afghanistan” and listened as Volker cited progress that has been made there in rebuilding roads, education, and the heath care system.
And he found a way to work in a vaguely campaign-like statement about the importance of international diplomacy. “Now is not the time for halfhearted diplomacy,” Obama told the five nominees. “We must raise the bar for our allies, and that must begin by raising the bar for ourselves.”
And then, with a flock of reporters on his trail and a quick, walking interview with a Colombian news crew – “I wish all the best for the Colombian people” – Obama was off to the next event.
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Expected from the yiung senator.
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Posted by: elsylee
| April 8, 2008 12:29 PM
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