I like biden, but this seems exactly wrong:
Quote:
We are choosing the next commander in chief----the questions they ask, and the responses, if any, they are able to get, should be more revealing than a lot of what we have seen in the debates.
WASHINGTON — In a unique moment in the history of American presidential elections, the prime candidates will debate the controversial Iraq war on Tuesday with its principal strategist.
The reason the contenders are veering off the campaign trail to show up for their day jobs is that they serve on Senate committees where Army Gen. David Petraeus is presenting what promises to be the most comprehensive — and politically charged — overview of the war before the August political conventions.
Two contenders — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will host Petraeus in the morning. The third, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Petraeus will testify Tuesday afternoon.
For the candidates, Tuesday's hearings offer something rare: a chance to look genuinely presidential. More specifically, it gives each a chance to look like a capable commander in chief, questioning and perhaps challenging a four-star general and the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq.
It's also the chance for each candidate to showcase his or her approach to the war, which one of them will inherit come January.
At issue Tuesday will be the state of the troop escalation, or surge, that President George W. Bush ordered a year ago and that dramatically reduced bloodshed in Iraq until recently.
McCain has said that the surge is working and that as president, he would maintain a long-term U.S. troop presence with a robust combat mission aimed at routing terrorist and insurgent groups.
Quote:
"The last thing we should be doing is viewing this through a political prism," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., himself a former presidential hopeful, said Friday |
We are choosing the next commander in chief----the questions they ask, and the responses, if any, they are able to get, should be more revealing than a lot of what we have seen in the debates.
WASHINGTON — In a unique moment in the history of American presidential elections, the prime candidates will debate the controversial Iraq war on Tuesday with its principal strategist.
The reason the contenders are veering off the campaign trail to show up for their day jobs is that they serve on Senate committees where Army Gen. David Petraeus is presenting what promises to be the most comprehensive — and politically charged — overview of the war before the August political conventions.
Two contenders — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will host Petraeus in the morning. The third, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Petraeus will testify Tuesday afternoon.
For the candidates, Tuesday's hearings offer something rare: a chance to look genuinely presidential. More specifically, it gives each a chance to look like a capable commander in chief, questioning and perhaps challenging a four-star general and the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq.
It's also the chance for each candidate to showcase his or her approach to the war, which one of them will inherit come January.
At issue Tuesday will be the state of the troop escalation, or surge, that President George W. Bush ordered a year ago and that dramatically reduced bloodshed in Iraq until recently.
McCain has said that the surge is working and that as president, he would maintain a long-term U.S. troop presence with a robust combat mission aimed at routing terrorist and insurgent groups.
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