Samantha Power has just resigned from Obama's campaign after calling Hillary a "monster" during what she thought was an off-the-record conversation. I don't have the credentials to evaluate Powers as an analyst, so I'll refrain from opining as to whether this is a blessing or a tragedy for the nation. I do think, though, that Obama's campaign is suffering for something that it should be more celebrated for: getting academics for advisors instead of professional government appointees. Academics are used to speaking their minds; people like Gene Sperling know when to shut up. Clinton's team are better at dealing with the political side of policy, and at some level that matters. But it seems more important to have good policies.
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Unfortunately, calling things like you see 'em is rarely a winning strategy in politics, especially if your way of seeing things is only capable of energizing the choir. Ask Howard Dean.
From what I've read of Dr. Powers's policy ideas, she seems to be a major league loser there, too. Say what you will about "professional government appointees," but they at least understand that not only policy, but statements about policy - even hypotheticals - have real-world consequences. They may be ass-covering weasels, but they also know their asses are unarmored. Tenured academics, coming from an environment in which even quite outrageous behavior, never mind mere loose talk, carries with it no adverse consequences are almost never temperamentally or experientially suited to give useful advice about the real world to people who have to operate in it.
It may have been a stupid thing to do, but I thank her for giving voice to those of us who see it the same way.
Yes, I'm an Obamite, but I was completely aware of the Clinton's self-serving slash-and-burn tactics and have been so for years. It might be amusing to watch McCain and Clinton tear each other to shreds but it's hard to see how that will be good for the country.
Dick Eagleson exhibits a characteristic shared by many voters: they don't like smarty-pants academics with well-though out, prize winning works.
In keeping with the anti-intellectualism, Dick Eagles ignores the fact that Samantha Power made the remark off the record. And that Samantha Power was a journalist who covered the Yugoslavian wars. And that she is not a tenured academic.
Dick Eagleson exhibits a characteristic shared by many voters: they don't like smarty-pants academics with well-though out, prize winning works.
Not if the smarty-pants are covering dumbasses, we don't.
But I have no opinion on Ms. Powers, other than she apparently has RICKM's gift for overstatement.
From the "For What It's Worth" department, I've been told the interview in which she said the comment was pre-agreed as on the record, and that she interjected "that's off the record" only after saying Hillary was a monster.
The Obama camp should have responded, "Ken Starr was worse than a monster. We're keeping her as long as you're keeping Wolfson."
You seem to make the assumption that academics create better policy than do professional government appointees. Why? What have you based this on?
Recall that John Yoo was an academic.
Samantha Power got a Pulitzer Prize and worked as a journalist in Bosnia. She's no ivory tower academic, she knew the journalism game and what not to say to reporters. She screwed up and became a liability. I'm glad she resigned, thereby depriving the Clinton campaign of fodder for a few news cycles.
The only good thing about Powers being one of Obama's advisors is that he probably would have listened to her about as much as he evidently listens to Goolsbee. It's good for the country that she's gone if he's elected President and bad for the country if she would have been a liability that kept him from getting elected...
I think the lesson here is not that you shouldn't have academics for advisors, but that you shouldn't let them talk to the press.
Come on. Academics are probably the worst choices for advisors, except on academic subjects. Such as a history advisor. Or an English advisor. Or maybe an art advisor.
When it comes to real world issues, people who live, work, succeed and fail in the real world are much more useful than academics.
Academics ruined our country under FDR, and they will under Obama if given the chance.
JohnF-
Thank god the Bush administration employed all those scholars of the Middle East before their invasion of Iraq!
Oh for goodness sake, Megan. A 37 year old academic should be able to tell good manners, and appropriate public speech, from bad. In fact, a smart, decently brought up 10 year old should know the difference.
Okay that’s one point in favor of academics.
Hmmm. I dunno. If she really uses the term "monster" to describe Hillary, she obviously can't usefully discern between her and people who actually ARE monsters, like Osama Bin Ladin, Kim Jong Il and Saddam Hussein and his two likely heirs to power if we left him alone.
So clearly, this twit wasn't very much up on foreign policy.
Looked at another way, isn't diplomacy and measured speech, umm, know, kind of IMPORTANT to foreign policy?
Jason Van Steenwyk, "twit"? Samantha Power screwed up by saying "off the record" a second too late, but she's an amazing writer and journalist (not, despite her post at Harvard, a PhD academic type) who went to Bosnia in her mid-20's as a freelance, probably more courage than everyone in this comment thread has exhibited put together, including me. Then that twit went on to write an outstanding (and Pulitzer-winning) book on genocide.
So why did she screw up? Well, the reporter for the Scotsman, on TV today, admitted that she had just arrived in Britain, was probably jet-lagged, was distracted by a phone call, was upset about Ohio... and, let's not forget, probably legitimately pretty upset about what the Clinton team had done. Remember, this is a writer whose prizewinning book was about how America failed to stop the horrible crimes of the 1990s, and then she sees Clinton running on how great her foreign-policy credentials are. Powers is a feisty broad, and she probably didn't think that 3am call was too funny, given that she covered massacres in Bosnia while the Clinton administration dithered. She lashed out. She shouldn't have. But I feel her... well, I was about to write "I feel her pain", but that has become a laughable cliche, hasn't it? And we know whom to thank for it.
Wow, Lane. In rushing to defend her, you just throw one red herring after another. Don't tell me the Obamaniacs are going to start coming out of the woodwork now like Ron Paulbots whenever one of their own is criticized. If that's how it's going to be, it's going to be a long election indeed.
Powers' personal courage has zero bearing on her credentials as a foreign policy wonk. Her immoderate language regarding her opponent, however, seriously calls into question her judgement.
As for her being jet-lagged, cry me a river. Diplomats who travel a lot are jet-lagged all the time. And they're also frequently and justifiably upset by what counterparties do. They also know how to hold their tongues.
As for her pulitzer - feh. You apparently hold the Pulitzer committee in higher regard than I do.
Well, Peter, I was just defending her from "twit". It's not a "red herring"; she's smart and hard-working and brave and I admire her work. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you're familiar with it.
sorry, meant "Jason". confusion reigns...
My mama always said, "twit is as twit does," Lane.
I don't give a rat's ass how many pulitzers she racks up...if she's using the term "monster" to describe Hillary Clinton, or any other mainstream American politician of either party, and she's never worked at the White House travel office, then she's a charter member of the twit club.
Megan,
"I don't have the credentials to evaluate Powers as an analyst"
Don't worry: neither does Matthew Yglesias, but that hasn't stopped him.
RICKM,
"Thank god the Bush administration employed all those scholars of the Middle East before their invasion of Iraq!"
You mean scholars such as Bernard Lewis, Fareed Zakaria, Fouad Ajami?
Powers is an extremely smart and hardworking foreign policy analyst. If I recall correctly, she has a degree from Harvard Law School, but she is not an academic; she started as a reporter in Bosnia, wrote "A Problem from Hell", and was chosen to head the newly established Carr Program at the Kennedy School because her background and energy made her well suited for a novel program that aimed to integrate a human rights perspective into international relations. She came into academia from the outside, as precisely the kind of hands-on practical practitioner who had "succeeded in the real world" that the neocons on this board (who appear to have no idea who she is or what her views are) say they would prefer to "pointy-headed academics". Powers is also a regular person who actually speaks her mind.
I think much of the problem here comes from the fact that it was a British newspaper that got the story. The British practice a variety of snotty gotcha journalism that exceeds even the dismal standards of the American political press. Moreover, British papers have little to lose in breaking a story like this; where an American paper might have hesitated to run a slip of the tongue like this one, if The Scotsman is shut of the Obama campaign for the rest of the year, its audience will hardly care. At the same time, standards of discourse in British politics are also more colorful, and a campaign adviser who called an opponent a "monster" would hardly be required to resign; so the reporter may never have imagined the repercussions of running this piece.
I agree that Hillary is a monster. Academics are far from being right all the time, but I would much prefer that people be permitted to speak the truth as they see it, without being forced to commit public hari-kari to save their boss's political face.
We as a society need to grow up and accept that honesty is the best policy, even (or perhaps especially) when it breaks a taboo.
And let me add that brooksfoe hits it on the head as to the British press! Well done!
America gets many of its worst cultural traits, as well as a few of its best, from the culture of its immediate predecessor.
"The British practice a variety of snotty gotcha journalism that exceeds even the dismal standards of the American political press"
Yes imagine printing a comment made by an interviewee during an on the record taped interview....
Are there no depths to which they will not stoop?
Actually I think theres a bit of a culture clash going on here. From what I've seen american journalists would have struck the phrase from the interview, whereas UK journalists wouldn't have.
So the american side are talking about 'gotchas' whilst the british side are puzzled at what the complaints are about.
""Thank god the Bush administration employed all those scholars of the Middle East before their invasion of Iraq!"
You mean scholars such as Bernard Lewis, Fareed Zakaria, Fouad Ajami?
Posted by Fred | March 8, 2008 2:53 AM"
Zakaria is not a scholar of the Middle East. He just is a Muslim, but not even from the Middle East. His specialty is American foreign policy. He's probably written more about wine than about the Middle East. Ajami is the Arab scholar that conservatives go to when they want an Arab to talk about why Arabs need to get beat up. As Reza Aslan has described him, he's the last brown Orientalist. His views change depending on who is paying more attention to him. The less said about Lewis, the better. He was fine in the 1960's when a lot of study of the Middle East was focused on how it was inferior to the West, but once scholars moved past that false dichotomy, he stopped being relevant. He knows about court politics of the Ottoman Empire, not the actual peoples of the Middle East today. So basically, you're 0-3 here.
Also, considering that Hillary Clinton was the one who gave Bill the book ("Balkan Ghosts" by Kaplan) that convinced him that Bosnia would be another Vietnam, which delayed military action, during which people Powers knew in Bosnia died, I'm willing to cut her some slack here. This isn't just an abstract question for her. Clinton's glib actions at the time made a bad situation worse.
Well said, brooksfoe, about both the terrible gotcha-quality of the British press, and the lively, antagonistic relationship British journos and politicos, not to mention the politicos themselves, are supposed to have with each other.
British reporters tend to see American ones as fawning to power. I (as, well, an American journalist) tend to see British reporters as sneering, bordering on unprofessional, more interested in showing how they can harass the political class and make their lives miserable than in getting the truth out there.
They're stereotypes, but there's something to the exaggerations of both American and British hacks.
Back when I was a journalism student, the going consensus was that a reporter should only treat comments as "off the record" if they've agreed to beforehand.
We were also encouraged to use judgement as well. This meant:
a) don't meekly accept everything proposed as "off the record" (that is, try to convince them go on the record before you listen; if that means telling them you're not interested in hearing their latest tidbit then so be it). "Off the record" can get to a bad habit (on both sides). Don't get into it.
b) if you agree ahead of time to keep it "off the record" (and can't convince them to change their mind afterward) then you keep it off the record. That'll teach you.
c) if they try to claim "off the record" afterwards, you're under no obligation to accede to their request. If this is a source you might need in the future you might want to give them a break (once, again you don't want to let it become a habit).
In this case, she gave the reporter a juicy soundbit and tried to backtrack. This particular reporter will probably not need her goodwill on an ongoing basis so printing it is fair game IMO.
When I was a reporter, I never allowed anyone to go "off the record" unless I got something specific in return. For example, a way to confirm what they were telling me. And if they were lying, all bets were off.
The one time someone said something stupid and then said "Obviously, that's off the record," I told him "You mean, you WISH it were off the record."
As I recall, it was a spokesman for Ron Paul, who told me "Obviously the SEC should be abolished tomorrow."
No, dumbass, it wasn't off the record!!!!
I don't see what the big deal is. So she called Hillary Clinton a "monster" who will "stoop to anything". By which she means, presumably, that Clinton will bite and claw her way to the presidency if need be. And we are all shocked - shocked! - that anybody would say something so nasty about one of our presidential candidates. Either that, or we think politeness and decorum are the really important traits in political advisors. Just think: if Power had called Hillary a "feisty underdog" who "leaves no stone unturned", it would amount to the same thing, and we'd probably be lauding her for her graciousness.
I can't help but think that the Power Fiasco would have been a minor story if the woman wasn't so damned pretty. Her image was plastered all over the news channels last night, and a photo of her from a Men's Vogue shoot last summer takes up the entire front page of today's (NY) Daily News, along with the enormous headline "Pretty Dumb!". I mean, seriously, this is front page news? Funny, I have no idea what Austen Goolsbey (sp?) looks like. I would have thought that allegations about back-channel NAFTA assurances to the Canadians would be a more substantive concern than a harmless insult like "monster", yet the kerfluffle that ensued was minor compared to this. In fact, Goolsbey was rarely even mentioned by name. I can only assume that he has the good fortune to not be very photogenic.
Jason, the Ron Paul spokesman's comment concerned a matter of policy. There is a substantial public interest in knowing the secret deep policy preferences of a candidate's staff. That's not really comparable to Power having used a nasty word to describe an opponent.