Sneak Peek: Crocker Speaks to Biden's Senate Panel from Baghdad

July 18, 2007— -- Joe Biden steps onto center stage Thursday when Amb. Ryan Crocker appears in front of his Senate Foreign Relations Committee via videoconference from Baghdad to answer questions about the situation in Iraq.

Biden will ask Crocker why the Bush administration expects Iraq to make political progress "in two months, when we haven't been able to make it in 4 years," per Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander.

He'll also ask: "What reason is there to believe the failing grades of the interim report will reverse to good grades in just two months?"

 The event gets underway at 10:30 am ET from Dirksen 419.

Barack Obama, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee which Biden chairs, campaigns in New Hampshire Thursday, holding a 4:45 pm ET open press ice cream social in Sunapee.

Speaking of Obama, will any '08ers weigh in on his telling Planned Parenthood that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is "age appropriate," is the "right thing to do"?LINK

Watch the video: LINK

Former President Bill Clinton appears Thursday morning on ABC News' "Good Morning America" from the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa. Clinton is touring various Clinton Foundation initiatives in Africa. While the former president is in Africa, the other half of the "commuter couple" par excellence spends her day in Washington, D.C., with no public campaign events.

Bill Richardson, who has moved ahead of Edwards in one New Hampshire poll, campaigns in Iowa where he holds an international relations forum at 12:00 pm ET followed by several "Presidential Job Interviews" in Newton (3:15 pm ET), Tama (5:30 pm ET), and Marshalltown (7:15 pm ET).

In a new Iowa ad, Richardson, who does not want any residual U.S. forces left in Iraq, says, "We need to get all of our troops out of Iraq." LINK

For his part, John Edwards attends a community meeting in Knoxville, Iowa, and then addresses the Iowa AFSCME convention in Des Moines. Elizabeth Edwards, who appears in a new ad for her husband, holds a fundraiser in Oklahoma City, Okla.