Walking The Plank From The Good Ship Obama
Samantha Power, We Hardly Knew Ya
By Dan McLaughlin Posted in 2008 | Obamafiles — Comments (35) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Well, Obama senior foreign policy advisor Samantha Power has resigned after making front-page news by calling Hillary Clinton a "monster". But not before she appears to have repeated Obama economic advisor Austin Goolsbee's shtick of helpfully explaining to a foreign audience that Obama doesn't actually mean to follow through on what he says on the campaign trail, thus confirming Megan McArdle's observation that Obama's advisers have a tendency to "spend far too much time saying 'Don't listen to him--listen to us!.'" Consider Power's remarks to the BBC:
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.
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 isn't 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.
H/T. Read On...
To refresh your recollection, Obama's "responsible, yet effective" plan (he was so impressed at the time that a plan could be both!) would have committed the nation to "phased redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq not later than May 1, 2007, with the goal that all combat brigades redeploy from Iraq by March 31, 2008." In other words, even with the war underway Obama wanted at the time to head in the exact opposite direction from the advice the military brass, led by Gen. Petraeus, was actually giving, to implement a stepped-up counterinsurgency strategy including a troop "surge". Now that the surge has proven to be a successful strategy, Obama's still running on his opposition to it, while his adviser was out there telling an international audience that yes, in office he would actually consider doing something different if he got military advice (technically, Obama is a member of the U.S. Senate, but I suppose they don't forward his mail on this whole war business to the campaign trail).
No wonder he fired her. Can't let the cat out of the bag while there are still anti-war activists to separate from their wallets.
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the lead Powerline writer who went after Powers being Photoshopped into either:
a) A photo of a fighter pilot grinning in his cockpit, with the silhouette of a moonbat painted on the side of his aircraft, or...
b) A picador in a bullfight, who so wounded the bull that...um, she (in this case)...stumbled into the matador's sword.
Photoshops, anyone?
And, to any Dem out there reading this---perhaps Ms. Power herself?---over here we call this "schadenfreude." We'll probably be doing stuff like this on this thread all day. If you stick around...OK, but you've been warned!
Tschuss! :)
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
They seem to be eating each other alive....what a great day for the Republic.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
This is the most fun you can have online without paying.
absentee
Almost 200 comments and they are killing each other....I love it!!!
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
Hillary is a traitor to the Dem Party...we're sick of her trying to tear apart our party when she really is running to be McCain's VP!!
Posted By: aquarius2001 | March 07, 2008 at 12:45 PM
Fighting for conservatism one day at a time.
"Sorry, Obama dear, it's for the children!"
Will have to work so much harder just to get back to where they were.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I don't see a problem here. Clinton IS a monster. Power just had the guts to say it in public. I think she needs to be applauded, not pilloried.
The reason it is being highlighted is because it came from Obama's top advisor, thereby creating for Dem infighting, which of course is a wonderful thing.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
and it is the only thing I will ever agree with Ms. Power on, it was MORE than a little bit foolish to let that slip in the middle of a presidential campaign and issue a half-hearted retraction later. How she suddenly forgot that her comments were "on the record" will forever escape me.
She deserves what she gets, if only for lack of cognitive function.
"If we ever forget that we are One Nation under God, then we will be a Nation gone under." - Ronald Reagan
It's normal to have those sort of comments bandied about by campaign staff to reporters ...off the record. (read the Josh Marshall link in Dan's RedHot). Of course..you CANNOT say "off the record" RIGHT AFTER you say something you don't want quoted. Doesn't work that way.
Oh, and I don't think she's a monster either. I believe in the essential good of 95% of humanity. (Nazis and terrorists excluded). She's just wrong. And shrill. And annoying. And ruthless. But I'm sure she's a good person.
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Barack Obama. A Change for the Worse.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Say it, baby!
President John McCain. Of course, Obambi has to get by Hillary, first.
Notice that Obama didn't have the pair to stand by Power the way Bush stood by Condi Rice.
What a schmuck. All he had to do was let Power issue an apology and let the matter drop. Instead, he let her go.
What a maroon.
Done. As in, toast. McCain pwns this guy.
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill
embarrassed explanations about their behavior, past and present
DON'T YOU JUST FEEL GOOD ABOUT JOHN MCCAIN!
I do, so be warned, you will be this sig a lot from me in 2008!
McCain remains nothing more than a lesser evil. He's still a liberal who will sell us out repeatedly. But at least he's better than the raw socialism that the Demagogic Party is peddling.
just as long as you vote.
I see your lips moving, but all I hear is "blah blah blah, blahblahblah, blah blah."
I'll hold my nose and vote for McCain.... but I'm not fully convinced it is the right thing to do. In the long run, it seems to be endorsing a Republican drift to the left. Maybe the kind of kick in the teeth that Carter provided is necessary for the public to re-educate itself and THINK, rather than just feel when they pull the lever.
does take a bit of the sting out of having to support McCain though! I gotta admit!
...he's got to clarify why he isn't willing to listen to the advice of "people who are on the ground to whom he doesn't have daily access" while he's running for POTUS, but he will listen to them if he's elected.
President Bush does have daily access to people who are on the ground and he is listening. Is Barack saying that he wants to "stay the course" and support Bush's strategy?
I'm confused . . . but delighted at the same time.
--
"We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged." - Colonel Henry Knox
Here is another take on the impending implosion..
http://noleftturnz.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/the-big-bang-theory-liberal-...
"When your idea of a stump speech is, “We believe in change. We believe in hope. We hope for change..” there certainly isn’t much grist for any opponents political mill."
Among many other gems. Bravo, sir. Bravo.
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Barack Obama. A Change for the Worse.
Remember if it's goign down the pan for Ob, those registering Dem to mess with their primary need to vote for him not her to keep those delegates on a knife edge.
Power was the most anti-Israel and anti-US advisor on his campaign. Well, probably not since he still has Tony Lake, Robert Malley, Brezinski and g-d knows who else hanging around. Still, nice to see they are taking themselves out one by one.
Goulsbee denies meeting with the Canadians, Rice admits Obama is unqualified, and Power admits he is lying about Iraq. What a great group of advisors!! It is like the Keystone Kops in his campaign!! Hillary better find a way to smash him over the head with this incompetence because I don't think the RNC is smart enough to do it ourselves.
Obama is Jimmy Carter- only without the sweater.
Don't forget Obama's *top* military advisor Air Force General Merrill McPeak who stated that all our problem with Iran were caused by George W. Bush!
I like the cut of your jib dear Sir!!
but in this instance, it is probably best to keep voting Hillary early and often since she is BEHIND and if Obama gains even more ground in super delegates as is likely, that will make it less likely she stays in for a brokered convention. I think we need to keep backing her so that she gets as close as possible before June. And then hope Obama can fight her off in Denver- and then all the sweet grandmas in Palm Beach county vote for McCain over the moronic Obama..
Obama is Jimmy Carter- only without the sweater.
Read Peggy Noonan's column in the Wall Street Journal today. She describes a meeting of the Clinton staff:
"Blank you. No Blank you. No Blank you, you blank. Oh, blank all of you.
These are the things that make life worth living."
LOL
Steve Willis
Professor of Law
University of Florida College of Law
I agree with Ms. Power's characterization of the ogress roguette Hillary Clinton. She is an amoral, hypocritical, win-at-all-costs specimen of everything wrong with Democrat politics----Obama was/is a refreshing change.
Sadly, Samantha may not be ready for prime time. She has the Irish temperament and has obviously kissed the Blarney Stone, but she needs to curb her tongue. As one observer noticed, she was caught between a scholar's need to tell the truth, the author's need to sell her book, and a political advisor's requirement to keep her counsel to herself and her candidate.
I worked on two national Democrat campaigns and worked under Harold Ickes [and John Podesta worked for me]. The need not to hurt your candidate is the prime uppermost consideration whenever you are in a public forum of any kind.
Zbig Brzezinski doesn't think she should have resigned, been fired, whatever. I do. She is unseasoned and too naive to be the chief foreign policy advisor to a presidential candidate. My last campaign for the Dems, I worked for Madeleine Albright [in '84 for Mondale]. I brought my then-close buddy Christopher Hitchens to the National HQ & the cabal around Albright shuddered at his eloquence & promptly shut him out of any public forums. They were perhaps too conservative & tight-lipped.
However, Samantha Power's time will come. But she is simply too glib, trusting, and unseasoned for the top level. Change & new faces don't always work, especially when you're trying to slay a "MONSTER."
though, isn't it. This probably happened only because it was a Scottish paper as I understand it. A US reporter would have kept it "off the record" even if it wasn't clearly off the record just because he/she would have been sensitive to the political implications and wouldn't have wanted to harm a Democrat. They simply don't have the gotch problems with reporters that we Rs do.
When I was an appointee, I went out of my way to not talk to them at all and I NEVER talked to one off the cuff; I'm good, but nobody's that good. You will say something they can make hay with.
In Vino Veritas
much as Navy ships paint aircraft/ship logos on their superstructure, to memorialze kills the ship has achieved.
Good shooting, USS Powerline
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)