Reply #20: sorry, you are spouting BS [View All]

[tabatha]

Q: Does Obama chair a Senate subcommittee that oversees the war in Afghanistan?
John McCain claims that Barack Obama chairs a Senate subcommittee that oversees the war in Afghanistan. Is McCain correct?

A: He chairs the Senate's Subcommittee on European Affairs, which has some oversight in Afghanistan through NATO.
At a town hall meeting in late May in Reno, Nev., Sen. John McCain accused Sen. Barack Obama of not doing more for Afghanistan through his position on a Senate subcommittee:

John McCain, May 28: Senator Obama is the chairman of an important subcommittee that has the oversight of what's going on in Afghanistan. He has not held one single hearing on Afghanistan, where young Americans are in harm's way as we speak.

Obama is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee's 11-member Subcommittee on European Affairs. That subcommittee doesn't have direct oversight of Afghanistan, as the McCain statement suggests. But the committee's jurisdiction includes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has been providing military support to Afghanistan since it assumed authority for the International Security Assistance Force mission in 2003. According to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations' membership and jurisdiction guide, Afghanistan would fall under the authority of another committee:

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_obama_chair_a_senate_subcommittee_that.html

and

Afghanistan Hearings

The ad starts by saying Obama "never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan," which is literally true. Obama, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on European Affairs, hasn't held any Afghanistan hearings. The full Senate Foreign Relations Committee, however, has held three hearings on Afghanistan during the past two years, and Obama attended one of them.

McCain's ad fails to mention that his own record is no better. Although he's the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, he missed all seven of the hearings that his panel held on Afghanistan during the same two years, according to ABCNews.com. (We looked through the transcripts of the hearings from Federal News Service to confirm ABC's report, and we found statements that showed McCain was not present at two of the hearings, statements from other senators speaking on McCain's behalf at two more hearings, and no mention of McCain whatsoever at the other three.)

It's a sad reality that candidates running for president in our political system generally have to neglect their day jobs to a huge degree, and that's no less true of McCain than it is of Obama. For example, McCain was absent from the Senate on the day Obama was voting for the war-funding bill that contained exit language that McCain opposed. McCain was in South Carolina on day two of a four-day presidential campaign "announcement tour" that also took him to New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and home to Arizona.

And how many meetings has Obama had since being President on Afhganistan. More meetings than there were in the entire eight years of Bush.

McCain did not quit his job either while running for President. In fact give me the name of ONE republican senator running for President who quit his/her job before campaigning. You won't find one.

My head hurts trying to reason with such nonsense as yours.