Barack Obama: Too Young for Grown Up Talk

This morning I woke up and watched some of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's hearing on General Petraeus's report on Iraq. Senator Obama's time to question Ambassador Crocker and the General came up a few minutes in, at which point he proceeded to ramble on, as senators do, about how the president's policies are failing, blah blah blah, but one thing he did was telling, I think, about how assertive of a leader Obama would be if he becomes president. He mentioned that the president, while in Australia recently, said that "we were kicking ass" with the surge in Iraq, but he didn't quote Bush directly. Obama paused mid-sentence for a long moment, and then proceeded to spell out "A-S-S."

Now I am all for keeping the honor and dignity of public office, but "A-S-S?" I don't even think that's as strong an expletive as "Damn it" generally speaking. And besides, it's not as if there were little kids in the committee chambers, unless you perhaps count the Senator himself.

If Obama is too concerned about offending people with the word "ass" then how can we be sure he can have the backbone required to protect America and its interests abroad as commander-in-chief?