...ak-ward!

[mick e]

AP wrote: Samantha Power, the Harvard University professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who earned notoriety for calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster" while working to elect Barack Obama president, will take a senior foreign policy job at the White House, The Associated Press has learned.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Aide_who_s..._0130.html

[RgrF]

As long as she's not liaison between Executive and State, they'll never see each other. Which of the two is in for the more eye opening experience?

[loveshine]

The linked article fails to mention it was an off the record comment that the journalist went ahead and published. Clinton knows full and well what she was doing and I can imagine the 2 of them getting along very well, both being bright and sharing the same values (aside from how to run a campaign).
I really admire Samantha Powers and hoped that after the campaign, that she would be back to work for Obama's administration. This is great news! Thanks!

[DavidS]

Sam will do a great job in this position. She was also part of the transition team getting the State Department over the last 2 months.

She and I were actually friends in high school (ran cross country and were on yearbook staff together) and she has always been someone to speak her mind. I saw her in October at our 20th HS reunion.

Also, the AP article states that she won the Pulitzer for her latest book. I believe it was actually for "A Problem from Hell."

[loveshine]

DavidS -That is so cool that you know her. I've seen her on Charlie Rose among other shows and was totally impressed with her.

I looked it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Problem_f...f_Genocide

"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide is a book by Samantha Power, Professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, which explores America's understanding of, response to, and inaction on genocides in the 20th century from the Armenian genocide to the "ethnic cleansings" of the Kosovo War. It won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2003.
Power observes that American policymakers have been consistently reluctant to condemn mass atrocities as genocide or take responsibility for leading an international military intervention. She argues that without significant pressure from the American public, policymakers avoid the term "genocide" altogether. Instead, they appeal to the priority of national interests or argue (without merit, she contends) that a U.S. response would be futile and accelerate violence as a justification for inaction.[1]

[loveshine]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/354796_power13.html


What is the biggest lesson you have learned in the aftermath of your controversial comments about Hillary Clinton?

Well (pauses) ... what is so abhorrent about my comments is not only are they hurtful and hateful; they don't reflect my real views of Senator Clinton. These are not thoughts I had been having alone in my own home, storing up to vent over these 14 months.

I really just had one of those bad moments when you lose your temper and you say something that sticks. It sticks out there as something associated with Senator Clinton and also with me -- all because of me.

What is the lesson? The lesson is that I wish somebody would invent a device that would allow me to go back in time. (Chuckles.) People keep saying to me that the lesson is: Don't say anything off the record. But I think the real lesson is don't say hateful and hurtful things anywhere. I know that sounds too ponderous. You got to keep control of your temper and not let the heat of the campaign ... cause those sentiments to bubble up in you.

Does your mistake, even with your apologies to both campaigns, disqualify you from taking a position in an Obama administration, if there is one? Has this done irreparable harm to your future prospects in political affairs?

I don't know at all what the future holds. I should get more sleep, drink more chamomile tea, do more yoga (laughs). ... When I left Harvard to work for Obama in 2005, I just wanted to be of some marginal use, bringing what I had learned in the field into the political domain. I made a profound rookie mistake that I regret. ... I will continue supporting Senator Obama. I still believe he would make the best president. That is where my focus is now. Beyond that, I have no idea.