Samantha Power's Resignation Statement

[Emit]

Power resigns

Samantha Power has resigned from the Obama campaign. The campaign released a statement from her:

With deep regret, I am resigning from my role as an advisor the Obama campaign effective today. Last Monday, I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor, and purpose of the Obama campaign. And I extend my deepest apologies to Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, and the remarkable team I have worked with over these long 14 months.

This campaign was her first time acting as a surrogate for a candidate -- not a journalist and academic speaking her own mind -- and it doesn't seem to have been her calling. (Which doesn't mean you shouldn't go buy her books, of which I'm a fan.)

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/

[Emit]

1. Meant to add, I'll be adding her to my book list.

[MrCoffee]

10. If you've never read "A Problem from Hell", you should run to the bookstore.

[Emit]

22. I'll stop by the bookstore this pm on my way home from work

Thanks for the recommendation. Others have recommended the same book by her. Are there others she's written that you recommend , as well?

[MrCoffee]

23. That's the only book of her's I've read...she's written tons of articles/essays, though.

She has a new one that was just released Feb. 14th called Chasing the Flame, about Sergio Vieira de Mello, chief of the UN Mission to Iraq who was killed by car bomb in 2003. I haven't gotten it yet because I've been sick as a dog for 3 weeks.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Wasn't Gloria Steinem acting on behalf of Hillary when she trashed

McCain as a POW? When is THAT apology coming?

[jlake]

3. So that you can criticize Hilly for "endorsing" McCain some more?

[TwilightGardener]

6. Hillary ran away from those comments like a frightened bunny. Guess

she doesn't have control of old Gloria. Bwah!

[jlake]

7. Is Gloria a paid advisor to Hilly's campaign?

[TwilightGardener]

9. Power isn't a paid advisor. PWNED!

[jlake]

16. According to FEC reports, yes she was.

[Emit]

18. Link?

I read she wasn't paid.

[cali]

11. Power wasn't paid, but it was the right thing for her to resign

Nevertheless, let me suggest reading her phenomenal book: "A Problem From Hell".

[Emit]

15. Was Power?

No.

[GoldieAZ49]

27. don't think she was employed by the campaign

didn't Hill 'denounce and reject' her comment?

[Coexist]

4. sonofabitch.

[John Q. Citizen]

5. Powers is one smart and classy woman. I wish her well. It's a shame that politics

does this to good women. One little mis-step and the power that be are calling for her head.

[easy_b94]

8. she will be back when Obama get into the whitehouse :)

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

21. It's the unfortunate nature of political discourse...

When a third-tier person in the campaign (she's an unpaid advisor, right?) makes a comment that seems a little harsh because of its "truthiness," then one side or the other demands that person's head on a pike.

No wonder Americans are dumb-shits when it comes to the issues. Every statement has to be candy-coated and sanitized for their protection.

[bluedawg12]

41. Dumb-shits is right: Obama plan out of Irag best case-

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0 308/Power_on_Obamas_Iraq_plan_best_case_ scenario.html

>>"Power downplayed Obama's commitment to quick withdrawal from Iraq on Hard Talk . . . 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 meeting with the generals and meeting with intelligence professionals, is that you - a 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.

The host, Stephen Sackur, challenged her: "So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out in 16 months isn't a commitment, is it?"

"You can't make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009," she said. "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator. He will rely upon a plan - an operational plan - that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn't have daily access now, as a result of not being the president. So to think - it would be the height of ideology to sort of say, 'Well, I said it, therefore I'm going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.'"

"It's a best-case scenario," she said again.<<

[frazzled]

12. She had to resign

And it shows that the Obama campaign is serious that it won't stoop to that level of name-calling.

It also heightens the contrast with the Clinton campaign, which tolerates such name-calling (cf. Wolfson, and his "Ken Starr" comments, as well as other staffers, advisors, and supporters).

[TwilightGardener]

13. I think it makes Obama look good. Power and Obama both did the right thing.

[txaslftist]

20. Yep. Powers broke the 11th Commandment.

[Shakespeare]

25. Yup. And now Wolfson SHOULD resign.

And so should Penn, just for being an incompetent douchebag.

[Cant trust em]

14. I'm surprised that this is a resign-worthy offense

So she called Hillary a monster. She could have apologized for it and move on.

[Emit]

17. She did apologize

Perhaps that wasn't enough -- I don't know all the facts and I doubt we'll ever know. (e.g., Did Clinton press the matter even after Power's apology?)

[Mass]

24. Hillary camp on Powers: fire her.

(even after she had apologized).

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/hillary_campaign_call_on_obama.php

[Emit]

29. I just heard a similar report on NPR n/t

[Kaylee]

19. Good move by the campaign....

Shows he's strong ethically and expects the same of his staff. Very impressed he was willing to do this.

[tekisui]

31. He lost a good one.

But, he took the high road.

[TexasLady]

26. I hope Clinton's advisors and campaign people

um, step lightly themselves. One misstep from any of them, and the same will be expected.

[Beregond2]

28. Resignation

Yes, I think it was the right move. After all, what does Obama really lose? She can still "advise," just unofficially. And this points-up the sharp contrast in class between the gutter politics of the Clinton campaign and the high road taken by Obama's.

[DefoliateBush]

30. Monster

Hitler and Stalin are examples of real-life monsters. For someone who is running on judgement rather than the value of experience, it seems that Obama is showing why he shouldn't be President by associating himself with a top foreign policy advisor who doesn't have the judgement to distinguish between Hillary and Hitler. Or a science advisor who can't answer science questions at a science debate and refers reporters to the Obama web site. Or an economic advisor who creates NAFTA-gate. The office of President is not the place for neophytes.

[anigbrowl]

32. Welcome to DU

Seems every new issue brings another new member to our community!

[Emit]

33. Science advisor who can't answer science questions at a science debate ?

Musta missed that one. Got a link? a name?

And, welcome to DU. :hi:

[Vilis Veritas]

34. The Clinton Campaign is expert at inciting

such comments.

This is planned. Spout a bunch of crap until the other side starts shouting then point at them and say they are crazy.

School yard tactics 101.

[MonkeyFunk]

39. LOL

it's Clinton's fault that she incited Power? how stupid.

[Neshanic]

35. And after living in an an Obama re-education camp, I will come back to serve

out glorious leader in whatever capacity he has for me.

[Vilis Veritas]

38. The American people already have the re-education camp

It is broadcast nightly on 200 million tv's across the nation.

Obama has nothing to do with it.

Peace.

[mmonk]

36. I think she needs to be in a policy position.

I will stand with that position. We are not in good standing with the world right now. And yes, buy her books because I have them and they are spot on.

[lewis_in_fw]

37. Thats what happens when you drink too much of the Obama koolaid. *NT*

[bluedawg12]

40. Lies, lies and more damned lies!

>>This campaign was her first time acting as a surrogate for a candidate -- not a journalist and academic speaking her own mind -- <<

She wasn't speaking her mind, she was a paid political operative, ever word Professor Power uttered represented her candidate.

Makes me even more worried that he is not ready for POTUS and the world stage.

She is a journalist:

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/samantha-power
"In 2007, Power became a foreign policy columnist at Time magazine. From 1993 to 1996 she covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia as a reporter for the U.S. News and World Report, the Boston Globe, and The New Republic. She remains a working journalist, reporting from such places as Burundi, East Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, and contributing to the Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. Power is the editor, with Graham Allison, of Realizing Human Rights: Moving from Inspiration to Impact."

She quit ans was canned because she let the cat out of the bag:

That the Second Coming may not really mean his campaign rhetoric about getting out of Iraq- that his POTUS policy would not be dependent on his own loft campaign BS.

It is too bad she fouled up- she seemed likable and a strong woman- but she did this to herself do not blame the Clintons for this, Linda.

[Emit]

42. I read she was not paid by the Obama campaign n/t

[bluedawg12]

44. Amateur hour: senior foreign policy advisor paid or not is not the issue

I don't give a flying pig if she is paid or not, she holds a serious postion in his campaign.

She has spoken on behalf of his campaign.

She has given interviews on behalf of his campaign.

She is/was a representative of his campaign.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/18/samantha_power/
"Now, Power is immersed in what she considers the toughest challenge yet in her action-packed career: serving as a senior foreign policy advisor to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. "

How do yu feel about her comments about his campaign rheotic about the was in Iraq?

Are there folskready for prime time?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0 308/Power_on_Obamas_Iraq_plan_best_case_ scenario.html
>>Obama's all combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months talk, is just campaign b.s., according to (after-the-fact former) Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power.


Power downplayed Obama's commitment to quick withdrawal from Iraq on Hard Talk . . . 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 meeting with the generals and meeting with intelligence professionals, is that you - a 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.

The host, Stephen Sackur, challenged her: "So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out in 16 months isn't a commitment, is it?"

"You can't make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009," she said. "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator. He will rely upon a plan - an operational plan - that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn't have daily access now, as a result of not being the president. So to think - it would be the height of ideology to sort of say, 'Well, I said it, therefore I'm going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.'"

"It's a best-case scenario," she said again.<<

[stillcool]

43. I'm sure she will be back..

in the fold once he wins the General Election. She is one smart cookie. Charlie Rose has her on often, and I've always admired the depth of her knowledge and commitment to the people in hot spots around the world.

[bluedawg12]

45. Of course she will be back- she is smart and articulate

all the more distressing that she made the comments about his plan not to get us out of Iraq.

I have heard her on Charlie Rose as well, and she should have been more wary on two occasions when giving interviews overseas:

The Monster comment was just self indulgent, undisciplined and a rookie mistake.

But the Iraq comment is frightening after eight years of lies.

[stillcool]

46. I actually see it as realistic...

the idea that things will look exactly as they do today anywhere in the world a year from now is a little disingenuous. I think plans made a year in advance are subject to revision. At least mine are. I plan on going to Florida next year on vacation. But, I may not be able to do exactly what I plan, so I may need to adjust my plans to the reality at the time. I agree it is a shame when someone working with the Campaign speaks the truth. Sure way to get yourself banished from dog and pony show.

[bluedawg12]

47. Realistic could still be consistent:

>>The host, Stephen Sackur, challenged her: "So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out in 16 months isn't a commitment, is it?"

"You can't make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009<<

It is a campaign commitment and he has made it. The answer should have been:

" As President, Barack Obama will do everything in hs power to keep his campaign commitment. The final analysis will be determined by the circumstances on the ground and as he has said clearly in his campaign, to consult the Generals and other advisers and formulate a careful withdrawal. If he can do it in ten months so much the better, but if it takes 16 months, 17 months, well, you can be assured he will be working towards that goal, the nation has spoken, he has listened. What he doesn't foresee is sitting back and accepting a 50 to a 100 year presence, as others have placidly accepted."