Cross-posted from Telegraph Brassneck:
Samantha Power, the Irish-born foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama and self-proclaimed “genocide chick”, expects she’ll get the “guillotine” from the Obama campaign today after calling Hillary Clinton “a monster”, she told an interviewer on state-owned RTÉ radio in Dublin this morning.
Power’s interview with the Scotsman was ostensibly to promote her book, Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, as was the interview with RTÉ. But the outburst, which she immediately tried to withdraw, is the top campaign story of the past 12 hours, sitting atop the influential Drudge Report and the top story on The Politico.
The Scotsman reported the exchange this way:
“clearly rattled by the Ohio defeat, Ms Power told The Scotsman Mrs Clinton was stopping at nothing to try to seize the lead from her candidate.
‘We f***** up in Ohio,’ she admitted. ‘In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio’s the only place they can win.
‘She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything,’ Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.”
This morning on Irish radio, the question came not from the presenter, Pat Kenny, but from a listener’s text message.
Power told RTÉ that the remark was “a lapse of judgement”, that came after an extended period without sleep and a transatlantic flight. And she stressed that “in the cold light of day”, her opinions of Hillary Clinton haven’t changed. Power said Clinton was “a role model for me and for so many women in public service”.
Asked if she had been “sanctioned” by the Obama campaign, Power replied: “I think that’s coming today. I suspect the guillotine is hanging over my head.”
Earlier in the interview Power seemed eager to address the issue, volunteering that Senator Clinton is “extraordinary” and “impressive” and hinting that she’d made her “share of mistakes”. But presenter Pat Kenny apparently didn’t want to go there - or wasn’t aware of his interview subject’s position at the centre of a transatlantic political firestorm that threatens to tarnish Obama’s image of civility - “to disagree without being disagreeable” is one of his most-used lines about how he thinks political discourse should be conducted.
When the subject did come up, she tried to explain that she was speaking in the context of defending her longtime friend and campaign colleage Austan Goolsbee, the University of Chicago economist and Obama adviser who, she said, was “dragged in the mud” when Canadian diplomats said he had told them Obama’s recent turn to the left on the NAFTA trade agreement was “political positioning” for Ohio voters. The subsequent controversy and poor PR handling by the Obama campaign was a contributing factor to the loss to Clinton on Tuesday.
Goolsbee, she said, never made the remarks attributed to him and the Clinton campaign had “run with” the story.
Since the Tuesday primary losses, it emerged that senior officials in the normally leak-free Canadian government had heard much the same kind of “take this with a grain of salt” noises from the Clinton campaign. And there have been suggestions that the centre-right government in Ottawa was trying to tilt the election against Obama.
Weirdly, the deputy leader of Canada’s Liberal party is Michael Ignatieff, who apparently was Samantha Power’s “soulmate” at Harvard.
UPDATE: RTÉ has the audio up for today’s Pat Kenny show - interview with Samantha Power begins around 25 minutes in
UPDATE 2: Power resigned about 11.30 EST - via The Caucus. She must still be in Ireland. It’s unfortunate. And I think maybe a mistake and I agree with this. Maybe it’s better to get the issue over with, but it’s quite a high-profile scalp.
I hope we’ll be seeing her in Obama’s State Dept, if not on the NSC staff. I’m thinking George Kennan’s old job would be ideal.
UPDATE 3: RTÉ Belfast’s Michael Fisher nabbed a followup with Power in Belfast.
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7 responses so far ↓
1 Hillary is not a monster. She’s a zombie. | Richard Delevan // Mar 7, 2008 at 3:32 pm
[...] Obama adviser who called Hillary a “monster” tells RTÉ she expects “guillotine… [...]
2 Hillary Clinton, Monster… I’m with Samantha Power on this one… // Mar 7, 2008 at 9:05 pm
[...] tends to hold himself and those around him to higher standards. In fact, Power assumes she’ll get the boot from the campaign over her Monster remarks. It just cracks me up, though, that someone who really [...]
3 bbln // Mar 8, 2008 at 7:39 am
Mr. DeLeVan - FYI - it would nice if you’re article were corrected, you know, just for integrity sake:
“After being asked whether Canadian officials asked for — or received — any briefings from a Clinton campaign representative outlining her plans on NAFTA, a spokeswoman for the prime minister offered a response Friday.
“The answer is no, they did not,” said Harper spokeswoman Sandra Buckler. … ..
Ms. Clinton’s team reacted furiously to the Brodie story and offered the Canadian government “blanket immunity” to publicly release the name of any campaign official who might have offered such back-channel assurances.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080307.wnaftagate0307/BNStory/National/home
4 USpace // Mar 8, 2008 at 11:52 am
Great post. Obama’s aid was right. Hillary’s a monster…
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
claim to care for people
call yourself progressive
your policies hurt poor folk
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
elect women presidents
who cover for their husbands
who rape other women
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
vote for any woman
better than any man
none could make things any worse
.
if you’re MAD
punish your country
VOTE for Hillary
.
http://www.hillaryproject.com/
Go here and watch ‘The Hillary Show’, with Howard Dean. It’s Hillarious!
http://www.stophernow.com/
.
5 Philip Huang // Mar 9, 2008 at 4:01 am
There goes the one remarkable woman with real foreign policy experience in the campaign.
FOR THE RECORD, the NAFTA “story” WAS wildly distorted and Clinton did run with that piece of garbage. Here is the Canadians’ apology:
http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/vsu/wmv-hi/macdonald-obama-memo080303.wmv
6 Followup interview w Samantha Power | Richard Delevan // Mar 9, 2008 at 3:05 pm
[...] Obama adviser who called Hillary a “monster” tells RTÉ she expects “guillotine… [...]
7 Mr. Devilan // Mar 10, 2008 at 7:28 am
“There goes the one remarkable woman with real foreign policy experience in the campaign.”
I’m sorry Mr Huang, I must have missed it, perhaps you could clarify the “policy experience” you are referring to?
On her CV I see several degrees from prestigious Universities (the last a law degree from Harvard), several years of journalistic experience, author of several books (well regarded I might add) and articles with a focus on genocide (clearly an important cause). She is also Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, based at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (where she was the founding executive director), and a “year of work” for Senator Obama.
I must have missed the entries dealing with her work actually advising on or crafting “foreign policy” in a real world situation (not a non-paid, sometime there, sometime not, “senior advisor” to a political candidate).
While she is CLEARLY a well repected journalist, an Ivy league intellectual and idealist (not bad things), and a student of international policies, especially with regard to human rights, I am amazed when people anoint her with the cloak of being an experienced “policy expert”.
Her off-the-cuff, undisciplined PUBLIC comments, including, but not limited to, the use of vulgarity, and including, but not limited to, her comments on Senator Clinton, mark her as a rank amateur in the world of domestic and international politics. Apparently some see these traits as desirable…evidence of her cheeky forthrightness and disarming honesty. I do not.
Both her speech and her body language indicate that she is clearly more at home in the free wheeling give and take of an Ivy League lecture hall, or the public theater of a Charlie Rose show than as a “senior policy expert” of a presidential candidate. I can only imagine her seated at international negotiating table.
Remarkable? Perhaps. Smart? Obviously. Opinionated? Clearly. Photogenic? Most think so. Disciplined? Hmmm. Ready for prime time? I, for one, doubt it.
[What is it about my name -- "Delevan" to "Devilan" -- that makes readers dyslexic and make Freudian slips? There's even a pronunciation key in the masthead for Chrissakes. - Ed]
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