That inconsequential subcommittee

Last night’s MSNBC debate co-moderator Tim Russert is on Morning Joe, bringing up Clinton’s point about Barack Obama failing to convene a single substantive hearing of the European Affairs subcommittee of the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations committee, to which Obama was appointed in January 2007. Obama’s response in the Ohio debate last night? He was already campaigning for president by then, and hasn’t had time for the subcommittee. Never mind it covers NATO, somewhat important because of that war in Afghanistan being fought by NATO forces. We’ve extensively covered Obama’s failure to do his duty here.

But I am certain that CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS et al. will have both Joe Conason and Joe Wilson [his op-ed is quoted below] on their news shows today to weigh in about Obama’s failure to do his job on European affairs. Aren’t you?

Here’s Joe Conason for Salon, in December, on WHY Obama’s failure matters:

Doubts about Barack Obama’s presidential credentials have crystallized during the past two weeks over his stewardship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on European Affairs, which has convened no policy hearings since he took over as its chairman last January. That startling fact, first uncovered by Steve Clemons, who blogs on the Washington Note, prompted acid comment in Europe about the Illinois senator’s failure to visit the continent since assuming the committee post, and even speculation that he had never traveled there except for a short stopover in London.

But why should those questions matter to Americans who consider Senate hearings so much useless verbiage? And why does anyone care whether and where a would-be president has traveled, on official or personal visits?

The simple answer to the first question is that Senate hearings do not merely provide occasions for grandstanding as many voters may suspect, but fulfill a critical purpose in providing information and perspective to lawmakers. In the Senate, the foreign relations subcommittees have few direct legislative responsibilities, but they have traditionally gathered substantive research for the committee itself and for the rest of the Senate.

Here’s how Joe Biden, now chair of the full committee, worked hard when he chaired that subcommittee:

Should Obama wonder whether he ought to have bothered with his subcommittee, he could ask his friendly rival Joe Biden, D-Del., who chaired the Europe subcommittee for many years during the Cold War. Biden effectively exploited the chairmanship to transform himself from a junior member into one of the Senate’s most knowledgeable experts on arms control, nuclear weapons, European attitudes toward America and the Soviet Union, the European Union’s policies, and the role of NATO, which also comes under the subcommittee’s mandate. As a result, Biden starred in Senate hearings on the SALT II arms treaties and eventually established himself as a leading national voice on foreign policy.

“I wouldn’t call it a neglect of duty but a missed opportunity to explore issues that will be of fundamental importance to the next administration,” says ambassador John Ritch, who served for two decades as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s senior staffer on European affairs and East-West relations, before going on to represent the Clinton administration at the United Nations organizations in Vienna.

Ritch points out that as subcommittee chair, Obama could have examined a wide variety of urgent matters, from the role of NATO in Afghanistan and Iraq to European energy policy and European responses to climate change — and of course, the undermining of the foundations of the Atlantic alliance by the Bush administration. There is, indeed, almost no issue of current global interest that would have fallen outside the subcommittee’s purview. …

Last night, Taylor Marsh weighed in:

Finally. Somebody brings up the NATO committee Obama co-chairs, but hasn’t called one single meeting. It was Clinton, not the moderators.

“It is true we haven’t had oversight hearings,” Obama admits. Somebody going to follow up on this one? No oversight, while Afghanistan is going to hell in a hand basket. Anyone? … ..

Here’s what Russert just said on Morning Joe, which I’ve transcribed off my DVR:

[Clinton said] you’re chairman of a subcommittee covering European affairs, which would include NATO, and you’ve never convened a meeting. And he said, well, I was too busy campaigning.

I think if she had made the question in that exchange less about Washington and subcommittees, and much more, saying “What have you done? What is your foreign policy experience,” it might have been a little more effective.

Fair point. Russert thinks she’ll hammer Obama on “What have you done?!” in the days to come.

For more background on the subcommittee, and Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience, see Joe Wilson’s op-ed here, “The Real Hillary I Know — and the Unreal Obama.”

Yesterday the London Times reported central questions about Senator Obama’s shocking dearth of international experience: “Fresh doubts over Barack Obama’s foreign policy credentials were expressed on both sides of the Atlantic last night, after it emerged that he had made only one brief official visit to London - and none elsewhere in Western Europe or Latin America.” It also reported: “Mr. Obama had failed to convene a single policy meeting of the Senate European subcommittee, of which he is chairman.”

These basic facts, coming from a major foreign newspaper, are a sobering counterpoint to a gushing Boston Globe editorial that endorsed Obama for having “an intuitive sense of the wider world with all its perils and opportunities.” Intuition may be a laudable quality among psychics and palm readers, but for a professional American diplomat like myself, who have spent a career toiling in the vineyards of national security, it has no relevance to serious discussion of foreign policy. In fact, Obama’s supposed “intuitive sense” is no different from George W. Bush’s “instincts” and “gut feeling” describing his own foreign policy decision-making. We have been down this road before. …

But, again: I’m sure that CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS et al. will have both Joe Conason and Joe Wilson on their news shows today to weigh in about Obama’s failure to do his job on European affairs.

I’m sure of it.

If they have an opportunity after dissecting Hillary’s tone and style of “attack.” Which takes precedence of course.

Maybe they’ll ask Conason and Wilson about Arkansasdemocrat’s concerns:

There is the threat of a new civil war with the Kosovo situation. The illegal proliferation of “loose nukes” from Russia continues. Britain has a new Prime Minister. The European Union is experiencing difficult growing pains. Parts of the EU have been pioneers on climate change, etc.

And not one single hearing since Obama took over as chairman 14 months ago. Amazing.