Lynn Sweet wrote of Senator Barack Obama’s missed opportunity yesterday during hearings on Iraq to ask probing questions, using six of his seven allotted minutes to lecture Gen. David Petraeus and Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker. From the column:

Obama used about six minutes of his time to lecture Petraeus and Crocker that the surge is of modest success given the cost and the Iraq central government is ineffectual — points he has been making in speeches and debates. As Obama was wrapping up, he said, “That, of course, now leaves me very little time to ask questions, and that’s unfortunate.”

“That’s true, Senator,” piped up Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the committee chairman and a rival for the Democratic nomination.

The Senator is also giving what his staff is calling a “major” address detailing his plan for Iraq today in of all places Clinton, Iowa. Honestly from what has been given to the press I don’t see much here that hasn’t been expressed by the campaign or the democratic party.

In the speech Obama resigns himself to the fact, as the Democrats as a whole have, that there is no military solution for the country. The Senator also is using the opportunity to once again take a swipe at Clinton and other rivals by pointing out he was opposed to the war from the start. Which is fine, but that sentiment not backed up with true alternatives doesn’t necessarily equate a real “change”.

From what I see his plan is to get the troops out now instead of later, call for a new constitutional convention in Iraq overseen by the UN, which would not adjourn until Iraq’s leaders found reconciliation, and stress diplomacy with about $2 billion in foreign aid to assist Iraqi refugees.

Now there is no way the president will pull troops out completely before the end of his term. The president has made that clear and Democrats don’t have the necessary votes to do it themselves and are unwilling at this moment to cut funding. Obama’s plan is contingent on an assessment of the situation right now.

This is the fatal flaw from what I have seen, of the speech he will give today. I will correct myself if the actual speech is written differently.

The Senator is talking from a point of view of what he would do if he were commander-in-chief today. That is a good device to show your differences from the president, not your differences from the primary challengers.

To transcend the primaries and his opponents Obama should be talking about what he would do when he is president in January of 2009. This is especially important because right now the Democrats are grilling Gen. Patraeus on his inability to have foresight about the far future and when troops can be brought home. So Obama and all the candidates should take a dose of their own medicine and imagine the reality of what life will be like not today but tomorrow, when they would be sworn in.

Obama needs to show he will make a good leader in the real world and the real world is not an ideal one. Yes he was against the war while watching from the state legislature in Illinois. Now he is a US Senator and he is against using the power he has to end the war, unwilling to cut off funding.

As president he may walk into the job, look to his generals and his people on the ground and they may actually tell him “sir, we have the ability to make progress but it will take six months more of war.” He may face generals who look to him and say “sir, we cannot win in Iraq militarily but we know Iran and Syria are giving nuclear material to terrorists, we need to now start two more wars.” Telling us what he would do today is nice because it makes the extreme flank of the party, but telling us what he would do tomorrow, letting us know that he has thought through the various places we may be in and how he might handle them is what could make him different.

Being a candidate is much different than being a President, we see it time and again as people walk into the Oval Office and realize that their are things that need to be done for the country that aren’t as good for the party. Decisions are more difficult when there are real lives in your hand and not hypothetical ones. Easy to command armies when they don’t take your orders.

The problem is Obama is supposed to be the new kind of politician, but I see no new ideas coming from him, especially on Iraq. If he wants to transcend the primaries and his rivals, he is going to need to start coming up with them.