Obama adviser who called Clinton a 'monster' working on State Department transition team

AP ^

[Chet 99]

Obama adviser once critical of Clinton is back

By MATTHEW LEE – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — An adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign who was forced to resign earlier this year after calling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster" is now working on the transition team for the agency Clinton is expected to lead.

State Department officials said Friday that Samantha Power is among a group of foreign policy experts that the president-elect's office selected to help the incoming administration prepare for Clinton's anticipated nomination as secretary of state. The Obama transition team's Web site includes Power's name as one of 14 members of the "Agency Review Team" for the State Department.

Clinton's role at State is expected to be announced after the Thanksgiving weekend. Power's apparent rehabilitation is another sign of that impending move.

[Deo volente]

I can’t remember...is Arkancide spread through the air, or by contact?

[billorites]

Not guilty, IMHO...

[bannie]

I think has stages...like the black plague. There's bubonic...and then there's pneumonic after it gets really virulent.

[HarryCaul]

Looks like the head of the consulate in Irkutsk to me.

[billorites]

"...is Arkancide spread through the air, or by contact?"

I'm hoping by full-frontal contact...

[Enchante]

I knew she’d be baaaaack!

.... was talking about her and her husband on another thread the other day.....

Samantha Power and her husband Cass Sunstein are both influential Obamanators behind the scenes, and will both play roles in one way or another, whether by official appointment or simply by advising more informally.

It would not be at all surprising to see Cass Sunstein nominated to the SCOTUS by Obama, unless the need for female/minority appointments takes precedence.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

I dont understand why they are so Ugly is it in the genes ? part of the mentality makes their faces look just Yeeeeuck

[Godwin1]

She is a foreigner from Ireland. Another America hating piece of Eurotrash. Just the ticket for Hussein Obama’s State Department.

[SunkenCiv]

State Department officials said Friday that Samantha Power is among a group of foreign policy experts that the president-elect's office selected to help the incoming administration prepare for Clinton's anticipated nomination as secretary of state.

She hates Israel, in case anyone wondered about Obama's diplomatic approach for the next four years.

[sageb1]

Samantha Power is really bad news.

[Jimmy Valentine]

The Witch of the West Wing is gonna get her.

[bkepley]

Pillow talk with Bubbuh?

[MortMan]

I can’t remember...is Arkancide spread through the air, or by contact?

It depends on the type of weapon used, the ammo in play, and how close the perp can get to the victim.

[dervish]

You are so right.

Powers:

“What we don’t need is some kind of early warning mechanism there, what we need is a willingness to put something on the line in helping the situation. Putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import; it may more crucially mean sacrificing — or investing, I think, more than sacrificing — billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new state of Palestine, in investing the billions of dollars it would probably take, also, to support what will have to be a mammoth protection force, not of the old Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence. Because it seems to me at this stage (and this is true of actual genocides as well, and not just major human rights abuses, which were seen there), you have to go in as if you’re serious, you have to put something on the line.

Unfortunately, imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is dreadful. It’s a terrible thing to do, it’s fundamentally undemocratic. But, sadly, we don’t just have a democracy here either, we have a liberal democracy. There are certain sets of principles that guide our policy, or that are meant to, anyway. It’s essential that some set of principles becomes the benchmark, rather than a deference to [leaders] who are fundamentally politically destined to destroy the lives of their own people. And by that I mean what Tom Freidman has called “Sharafat.” [Sharon-Arafat; this is actually an Amos Oz construction — NP] I do think in that sense, both political leaders have been dreadfully irresponsible. And, unfortunately, it does require external intervention.”

Noah Pollak: Just so we’re clear here: Power said that her advice to the President would be to 1) “Alienate” the American Jewish community, and indeed all Americans, such as evangelical Christians, who support the state of Israel, because 2) Israeli leaders are “destroying the lives of their own people.” 3) Pour billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money into “the new state of Palestine”; 4) Stage an American ground invasion of Israel and the Palestinian territories — what else can she mean by a “mammoth protection force” and a “military presence” that will be “imposed” by “external intervention”? — in order to do the exact same thing that she considers the height of arrogance and foolishness in Iraq: an American campaign to remake an Arab society.

Note that this wasn’t her response to a question about her personal views of the conflict, or about what she envisions might be a utopian solution to the conflict; it was a response to a question about what she would tell the President of the United States if she was his adviser. Yesterday Barack Obama took a large stride toward the presidency–helped in some small measure by the speeches on behalf of the Obama campaign that Power has delivered–and it is time that someone asked him, while he is still a candidate, what he thinks of the perverse things his many foreign policy advisers have said about Israel and the Middle East.

As Samantha Power herself acknowledged, there is “a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import” that would like to know where Obama stands on these matters.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/2093

[Texas Fossil]

There is an illuminating article about coverage of the West Bank issue and Samantha Power’s appointment at:

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2009/02/ny-times-friedman-calls-for-us-troops.html

It is an article critical of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman who has taken the same position as Samantha Power.

A video of an interview Power gave about using U.S. Troop deployment to maintain Peace and Nation Build in the West Bank follows the article.

It is a must view!