The Corner and the Chicago Sun-Times reported this on Obama and the Blowhards in the Senate hearings (Via Instapundit):
Each member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had seven minutes to question Petraeus and Crocker about the Iraq War. Obama used about six minutes of his time to lecture Petraeus and Crocker….As Obama was wrapping up, he said, “That, of course, now leaves me very little time to ask questions, and that’s unfortunate…”
…Petraeus never got to answer Obama’s 266-word question. Rushed at the end, Obama asked about benchmarks not met. Crocker said, “Senator, I described for Senator Sununu a little bit ago some of the things that I think are going to be very important as we move ahead.”
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) followed Obama. He told Petraeus and Crocker, “As you have found, our hearings are more about listening to ourselves than listening to our witnesses.”
Hear is the video with a little introductory yackety-yak from Senator Obama and priceless facial expressions by General Petraeus:
Priceless!
House Republican Whip Roy Blunt added this at National Review Online:
It’s not every day that sees a four-star general, a Princeton Ph.D., a recipient of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, and the chief author of the Army’s definitive counterinsurgency manual testify before Congress. But in Gen. Petraeus, my colleagues were presented with every bit of that assembled expertise in the form of a single man — giving those who wanted it a chance to supplement their knowledge and gain valuable insights into how best to accomplish our goals of a secure and stable Iraq.
But when faced with the opportunity to set politics aside and educate themselves on a vital matter of foreign policy and national security, too many of my Democratic colleagues decided the more prudent course was to dismiss, denounce, or flat-out defame the commander they had demanded fly in to brief them…
It was a sad and embarrassing week for the democrats in Congress who can not accept winning as an option.
