Eat your vegetables.
This hearing -- and I like hearings -- was about as exciting as the title of this post. I tried to jazz up the title a bit, but it's pretty representative of the three hours of statements and testimony the way it is. As a friend who watched the hearing with me later said, it's like eating your vegetables. I guess you gotta. Besides, if you were looking for a hearing with pizzazz, the Roger Clemens steroid fib-fest was happening at the same time. You may have seen that one, it was live on every cable news channel.
Don't get me wrong. It was an important three hours. We're talking about a $39.5 billion dollar budget for things like counter-insurgency, reconstruction, humanitarian aid, and other projects related to our relations with the rest of the world. And I will apologize to the Senators and Sec. Rice in advance for this because I know it's gotta be done, but the best description I heard of this hearing was 'substantive'. It was. That means dull, by the way.
Really, we should thank the SFRC members for actually sitting through this stuff. As the Senator notes, several of the committee members didn't, and left during questioning. I feel their pain.
Maybe I'm just used to fiery JK speeches about dissent and patriotism and taking on the status quo, and not sitting through hours of Senators talking to Condi Rice about how much money we need for this or that project in Afganistan. It just seems unusual to have Condi testify to the SFRC and not blast her on Bush's failed policies and out of control spending. But as much as I liked watching the SFRC hold this administration's feet to the fire, I won't miss Condi and her pals when they're gone.
Video Credit: C-SPAN
It should first be noted that Senator Kerry, Secretary Rice and the other members of the SFRC opened their remarks with an acknowledgment of the passing of Congressman Tom Lantos, a good man who will be sorely missed.
On the topic of the budget, I think it's fascinating that Condi was able to say, straight faced, that she hopes for the first time, that the budget for Afghanistan will be fully funded. Well, that's good, Mme. Secretary. We've ignored Afghanistan for two Bush terms, let's fund it now that he's done. Nothing like letting the Democrats pay to clean up Bush's mess. And the whole idea of supplemental spending is kind of an odd thing when you're budgeting. If it needs funding, why is it outside the budget? I don't get it. Neither, apparently, did either Senator Kerry or Senator Biden.
They did veer off budgets to some discussion of policy, of foreign aid and reconstruction. Not much new or unexpected from Sec. Rice there. In her opening statement (which can be watched at C-SPAN's video library), she states that "... this Administration has focused very heavily on the importance of uniting our interests and our values." When the dissembling starts in the opening statement, the rest of the hearing is typically pretty fascinating. In this instance, not so much. On re-reading, perhaps by "our interests and our values", she meant hers and President Bush's. In that case, probably true.
What is really interesting, though, is that Sen. Kerry is going to Pakistan this weekend to help oversee their elections. Nice, since he knows better than anyone (other than Al Gore) what it feels like to have one stolen.
Senator Kerry asked Sec. Rice how confident she was that these elections would be fair and free.
“I believe that Pakistan leadership understands that they have to have election that inspires confidence in the Pakistan people, that it’s a step forward towards democracy,” she said.“It is not going to be easy. We all are concerned about the potential for violence. We are concerned about the potential that they are at least pockets where there may be problems with elections.”
Stay safe, Senator.
