Reply #24: I finally got a chance to listen to the entire hearing.

[beachmom]

I figure others may want to just hear the key parts, so here they are:

18:43 -- Opening statements by Kerry, Lugar and Burns.

57:30 -- Lugar's questions. Particularly interesting to hear his questioning on the need for a Congressional declaration of war. Glad to hear that asserted.

73:00 - Corker's pointed questions. He was very impressive -- skeptical and blunt, but also quite polite. In particular, his questions on who the rebels actually are was quite good. Burns did not have a good answer. Burns WAS better talking about potential of extremists getting involved or that Quaddafi could go back into the business of terrorism.

88:00 -- Rubio. What.a.joke. He was a cartoon Republican and now, that the U.N. resolution passed last night, he sounds like a complete moron who knows nothing how the U.N. works. He is arguing that it's better that the U.S. does everything unilaterally. Based on his performance here, I am highly impressed with him -- he is unpresidential and is not a good candidate for higher office. He will be like Feingold in one regard -- the GOP base will love him and want him to run for POTUS, but he simply isn't presidential material. He's no moderate. He COULD have made his points (neoconservatism) and sounded good, but he chose to sound like the Fox News Network instead.

104:00 -- Webb. Another skeptic. Nice to see a Democrat be contrary, but he is independent and is not staying in the Senate, so I'm not sure how big a deal it is that he is dissenting here.

111:00 -- Kerry rebuttal to many points made. He clearly respects Lugar, Corker and Webb, acknowledges what they said, but talks about time constraints here. I also was glad to hear him question Burns about Bahrain. Very lame response from Burns about "dialogue". I think pulling punches has to do with the fact we have a base there.

Overall, I thought the hearing was quite good, although there were some boring parts that made it drag. I was fascinated by the fact that the GOP is quite divided on this issue. It's not that big a deal that Lugar dissented, but Corker did as well. In complete contrast, Rubio took a total hardline. What does the Tea Party think of all of this? They never have struck me as neocons. But it's my understanding that the neocons are doing power plays in the GOP to make sure they hold onto power and that their thinking dominates foreign policy discussion within the GOP.