October 20, 2005

And the first nomination for Least Justified Highlighting of Barack Obama....

A NYT article today begins:
In three and a half hours of hearings at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ms. Rice was both conciliatory and combative, rebutting the gloomy assessments from senators of both parties but at the end offering a weary concession to Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.

"I understand that, yes, it might not work," Ms. Rice told Mr. Obama, referring to American plans to raise the effectiveness of Iraqi forces and heal Iraq's fractious society. "But every day we have to get up and work at our hardest to make it work."

Obama is never quoted in the article, and we are given no indication of what he might have done to wrest this "concession" from Rice. Statements of numerous other senators appear further down in the article.

6 comments:

knox said...

Great headline.

It's been nonstop a**kissing from the press since the democratic convention.

Unknown said...

A weary General Eisenhower was forced to admit that Operation Overlord might not work.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee began to weep in unison, insisted that he call it off, grabbed their binkies and went home.

Steve Donohue said...

Let me just say that stars that reach this bright a shine 3 or 4 years before any potenital presidential run seldom retain their luster for long enough to succeed. He's going to have to do more than be "generally liked amiable black senator who defeated sweaty Alan Keyes", which I think is his official position right now.

He'll come back to earth. Everyone does, whether rightly or wrongly.

ALH ipinions said...

Ann

Did you happen to see the Hearings you reference?

I’m sure your readers will be justifiably weary of anything published in the New York Times.

Nevertheless, it is indeed noteworthy that Obama elicited this concession from Rice. And, he may have succeeded in this regard because - by the time his turn came to question Rice - she was so mentally and physically weary of the politically motivated bloviating by other Senators that she suffered little of the (Michael Crowe) "tell what they want to hear" syndrome.

Then again, Obama may have succeeded because he treated her with the respect her office demands and did not try to score cheap political points in his colloquy with her.

Unknown said...

Well, at least they didn't call him a rock star.

Does anyone think that the chief of staff guy to Hillary's...er, Geena's First Lady on CIC looks like him?

Laura Reynolds said...

I think the senate should have a rule that "questions" in a commitee hearing can only be one sentence (and so many words) long. If additional questions are needed to clarify an answer fine, but this rambling bloviating is ridiculous.

Obama will get the Mario Cuomo ('84) treatment, annointed as the next great hope. Good luck with all that.