Sam Power as next Sec'y of State? Ugh

Oh, she's a smart mind, indeed. And, I won't question her moral dedication. But, the U.S. can't get involved in every bit of every foreign nation's internal unrest, first of all. So, the idea of her becoming Obama's next Secretary of State, or National Security Adviser? Pass.


Second of all, who decides when it's just "unrest" and when it's "genocide"? Take former Syrian President Hafez Assad. Were his actions against his own people "just" putting down unrest, or something more? And, beyond racial or ethnic lines, how many groups will ask for a redefinition of what all constitutes genocide?

I do know, from what I've read about here that, smart as she is, she's not wrestled with those questions.

Beyond that, she's either a hypocrite, clueless, or a big suck-up, even by Beltway standards, if she thinks President Obama has "waged" a two-year campaign of elevating human rights issues, and that that led to intervention in Libya.

The reality?

1. First and foremost, just a month ago, we vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Israel and West Bank settlements, arguably a human rights violation itself.
2. Right now, we've been quiet on Bahrain squashing and quashing Shi'ite dissent.
3. A year ago, Obama had Hillary Clinton kissing Hosni Mubarak's ass.

Samantha Power: Bigger flub with Obama campaign – on Iraq

Samantha Power, the recently-resigned former top foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama, has had another media flub, and a more serious one, than calling Hillary Clinton a “monster.”

In attempting to give Obama “wiggle room” on his Iraq policy, she made him look less than committed to a full withdrawal and definitely not committed to a certain pace of withdrawal:

Power downplayed Obama’s commitment to quick withdrawal from Iraq on Hard Talk, a program that often exceeds any of the U.S. talk shows in the rigor of its grillings. She was challenged on Obama's Iraq plan, as it appears on his website, which says that Obama “will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”

“What he’s actually said, after meting with the generals and meeting with intelligence professionals, is that you — at best case scenario — will be able to withdraw one to two combat brigades each month. That’s what they’re telling him. He will revisit it when he becomes president,” Power says.

In other words, a bit of a NAFTA-esque moment for Obama on Iraq. So, just what does he believe? And, given that his anti-Iraq stance from before his 2004 Senate election is a major part of his presidential campaign image, how much will this hurt him?

And, how hard will the Clinton campaign push him on this?

The cluelessness of Obama staff – Samantha Power update

Enough additional stuff has “moved” on the Samantha Power case since I originally posted this last night that the story line needed an update in a separate post.

Barack Obama foreign policy aide Samantha Power tried an ex post facto comment retraction of a comment about Hillary Clinton:

“She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything.”

And, a personal aside. I’ve been the journalist on the receiving end of just a gaffe myself, when a school district superintendent called the federal Title I program a “candy store” in the middle of a school board meeting, then tried to retract it.

Now, lemme see on the fallout. Tweety Chris Matthews will probably go into misogynist mode with both snafus being about women. Maureen Dowd will probably figure out a new spin on “shoulder-pad feminism” or worse, while more serious analysts will wonder if Power didn’t just prove Rice right.

Power has now resigned over the comment.

Futher tidbit: Here’s Josh Marshall’s take on the Power resignation and how it shows Clinton is inside Obama’s head right now:

Obama folks can either withdraw to a world where the “new politics” reigns or focus on the fact that here in the real world there are two “old politics” practitioners standing between him and the presidency and he needs to decide how he's going to deal with that fact..

I agree; what else is there to say?

And, how does a former experienced professional journalist shoot herself in the foot like this? (And no, I don’t think the Scotsman sandbagged her or something. Per Wikipedia: From 1993 to 1996, she worked as a journalist, covering the Yugoslavian wars for U.S. News & World Report, The Boston Globe, The Economist, and The New Republic. Boy, Clinton must really be inside Obama staff’s heads.

Update: Earlier, I had raised the idea of an arrogance meme. I am corrected on this; the interview with the Scotsman was not an official campaign interview, but rather part of her book tour for her new biography of the late UN official Sergio Vieira de Mello.