Truemors
AWOL McCain, Clinton, and Obama on Capital Hill for Petraeus Testimony
By Albert N. Milliron
Senators John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton are on capital hill today for the well publicized General Petraeus Hearings. But where were they when the cameras were not in the spotlight? According to a Washington Post database that tracks congressional votes, John McCain has 304 votes (56.9%), Barack Obama has missed 204 votes (38.2%) and Hillary Clinton has missed 148 votes (27.7%).
Here is a question I presented to the Late Congressman Charlie Norwood (R-10th Ga) "When I miss work, I don't get paid, does the same rule apply to Congress?" Charile contacted me and said there was a provision for docking congresses pay but it had never been done.
The bottom line is all three of these sentators have been getting paid for not working. It's called stealing were I come from. This is not new, four years ago the same issue came up. The law that docks pay still hasn't been implement because most Americans only turn on the TV for important issues like the Petraeus Testimony. You turn on the TV and there is our Candidates for president. all three of them, appearing like they have been there all along.
This morning, in the ornate Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, McCain, who has clinched the GOP nomination, and Clinton, now running second behind rival Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, questioned Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker about how the military buildup of U.S. forces in last year's surge had changed the landscape and what lies ahead for U.S. policy in Iraq.Clinton, who last year famously said that the predictions of success for the surge would take "a willing suspension of disbelief," was expected to focus on the failures of the Iraqi government to forge a reconciliation between Shia and Sunni citizens.
"Even Gen. Petraeus a few weeks ago had to admit that there hasn't been the political reconciliation and progress that one had expected," she said in a morning interview on Fox News. "I'm not surprised, because the Iraqis, I think, believe they've been given a blank check by George Bush."
Obama, who gets his chance to question Petraeus and Crocker this afternoon when they testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made similar arguments in a morning interview on NBC's "Today Show."
"The American people, I think, have recognized that we have a legitimate national security interest in Iraq," he said. "They have been extraordinarily patient. Nobody has been more patient than the military families who are there. But at some point, we have to say to ourselves that the Iraqi government has to stand up and make the difference. And they have not done that."
For his part, McCain reiterated the position he laid out yesterday in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "We're no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine process of success," McCain said in an opening statement today. "We should not choose to lose."
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