A sad result of the hyper-sensitivity created by the over-reaction to what is a highly charged campaign.
This is just stupid.
Posted by snark at March 7, 2008 10:35 AMshe may be book smart, but that remark was just plain DUMB. as a former journo herself he should have known better.
some of the gloss is off the Obama campaign-and rightly so. I'm sick of the "coronation" meme that so many in the lefty blogosphere are pushing. Obama needs to make the case that he'd be a better president than Hillary, IMO he's not there yet. Airy-fairy speeches about uniting the country, bipartisanship and hope just don't cut it for me. I have no doubt that he is smart enough, but Hillary has stood up to all the slime that the Rethugs have thrown at her, while Obama's never really had so much as a contested election-look at his Senate bid JFE.
Posted by susan at March 7, 2008 10:40 AMAiry-fairy speeches about uniting the country,...
Off to a stellar start on that one too!
Posted by snark at March 7, 2008 10:48 AMJosh Marshall has a very interesting post on this resignation and what it may indicate about Obama's willingness to fight. He thinks the Clinton campaign has put Obama on the defense and that they are in disarray.
As for Powers, she is clearly a shining star and hopefully will find an important policy position in the next administration, whoever is on top.
Posted by Radiowalla at March 7, 2008 10:54 AMSen. Clinton could of showed some Class & Magnamious of spirit by accepting Ms. Powers' apology and moving on, knowing that some pretty heated things get said in the thick of the battle. Unfortunately, Sen. Clinton and her cronies had to show how Petty they are and call on Ms. Powers' resignation and nowshe is out of a job when the economy is so bad. A true person of goodwill would have smiled and said I accept your apolgies. That would have been like doing the right thing. There is no hope in that woman or forgiveness Sen. Clinton really feels about a woman's plight, she could have cared less. There is no forgiveness, she is not a pleasant spirit, and unfortunately ruthless. What goes around comes around and what you put out will come back. Sen Clinton has a lot of unpleasant things to look forward too. I guess that is why her life has been like it is, because underneath that exterior is a blackened heart of stone. When Obama wins contests, she comes out and does her stump speech and never congratulates Sen. Obama at all. And now we see that she did not even have compassion towards another women -- just cut her head off, she says! Put her out in the cold, let her suffer, what a mean-spirited women. I like the way Ms. Powes had the class to resign so as not to derail Sen Obama's campaign efforts. She quickly defused the bomb Sen Clinton hoped to throw. People will begin to see through these monstrous tactics of Sen Clinton and her Team.
Posted by bacaangel at March 7, 2008 11:08 AM"Airy-fairy speeches about uniting the country,..."
Not so airy-fairy I'd say, since he put his money where his mouth is and let go of a good adviser over her divisive comments.
hey, rw- great to see you here!
interesting take from marshall. i'll go look. and agreed about power.
Posted by Turkana at March 7, 2008 11:23 AMPerhaps Senator Obama, the Uniter, could have reached out to Senator Clinton and diffused the situation himself?
It would have been good practice for all that reaching across the aisle he plans on doing.
Wonder if he's gonna have copies of his adversaries tax returns in his hands when he does his reaching across the aisle bit?
Posted by snark at March 7, 2008 11:24 AMsnark, is it good to get all snarky about something you correctly labeled "stupid"? Or are there more than one snarks?
Posted by T2 at March 7, 2008 12:12 PMT2,
Her having to walk away from her job was stupid.
Blaming it on Clinton is stupid.
Sorry if my having fun with midwestdem offended you.
Posted by snark at March 7, 2008 12:21 PMJosh Marshall is an idiot. Any Clinton campaign staffer who has impugned Obama has been let go immediately.
What Clinton demonstrated is that she is more respectful of him than he is of her. She had to hold a demonstration in order to get him to rise to the standards she holds her campaign staff to.
She made obama and Samantha Powers look like uncouth pigs. If Obama had behaved as Clinton does, she wouldn't have been able to do it.
This is one more sympton of the sense of entitlement that is on full display in Power's deplorable rhetoric. The entire Obama campaign has hoodwinked and bamboozled itself into thinking that they can play in the muck and not be called on it because they are entitled to do whatever is necessary to take her down.
Clinton behaved responsible when her surrogates acted up. Obama doesn't and didn't. That's one of the big differences between the two campaigns.
Posted by lorelynn at March 7, 2008 12:23 PMJosh is an idiot. Yep.
He has no credibility on anything to do with this race anymore.
Next time some bonehead on the Clinton campaign makes a mistake I wonder if you will show as much empathy.
Posted by at March 7, 2008 12:29 PMi wasn't offended, it was a rib.
Posted by T2 at March 7, 2008 12:53 PMI wonder what Obama supporters would have said if someone in Hillary's campaign had called Obama a monster?
Posted by Judith at March 7, 2008 02:03 PMHow are you Judith?
Good to hear from you.
Posted by snark at March 7, 2008 02:10 PMAnon,
There is no need. Hillary has had everyone who has insulted Obama step down. After the "muslim email", she flew to an airport, met him on a tarmac and apologized personally. Powers's comment is far more egregious yet, unlike Clinton, Obama says and does nothing.
That's my point. Obama has not gone out of his way to apologize for Power's attrociously entitled behavior, and it took Powers a day and a half to do something. When Clinton's staff has misbehaved, action has come within hours.
It's the differrence between the two campaigns. have we heard a personal apology out of Obama as he has received from her?
Posted by lorelynn at March 7, 2008 02:27 PMTurkana,
Thanks for the greeting. I'll be dropping in to see what's up here.
Radiowalla
"Airy-fairy speeches about uniting the country"...
Michelle is just a beard? Say it ain't so, Bo.
Posted by TIKI AL at March 7, 2008 06:14 PMit offends me when a person like powers says something mildly inappropriate
and then gets hung for it.
which of us has not said something really stupid publicly?
she should be given a pass and allowed to continue (and, incidentally, learn from her "mistake" which, after all, was only saying what she was feeling).
speaking of "speaking" feelings,
human beings do get hot under the collar, you know.
must we always have such a sanitized public discourse that no one dare utters "a disparaging word" - and the deer and the antelope are all free - just not us.
calling a person, even an important person, a name should not be that big a deal.
of course, if this were a republican campaign/candidate, there would be no f---in' apology.
and, in terms of political tactics, that's not such a bad thing.
let the press stew, for days if necessary, and then issue a small apology/rejection of whomever/whatever is the object of "oh, this is bad" media attention.
the strategy is not to respond immediately.
when you do that you look like you are "runnin' scared".
in politics, "runnin' scared" is about the same as an unplanned, pel-mel retreat in warfare.
nobody's got your back.
Obama! Hillary! It's sort of "Do you like dogs or cats? No middle ground now." Personally, I like them both. It just depends on the recipe.
Posted by RUKind at March 7, 2008 09:40 PMI totally agree ...we need more people like Samantha Power and she is right. Hillary is a monster for her vote on cluster bombs, her vote on Iraq and her Xtian mission to rule our nation with a scorched earth policy to get there. I'm done with her and Bill.
BTW, what's with the "Hillary speaks for me" ad? Bleeh.
Oh and also ...my mommy used to call us kids "monsters" when we were little. Should we fire her now?
Posted by Ursula at March 8, 2008 09:11 AMEvery major-leaguer in our two-party system is a monster. Ask the dead Serb babies. Ask the Cuban operatives JFK sacrificed. Of course ask the Iraqis, but most readers on this site have no trouble with that one. I'm not a Ron Paul nut-job. In fact I'm voting for Barack, but only because I think he'll kill fewer Pakistani children than McCain. Rest assured, the Change Candidate kill plenty all the same. Read more iconoclastic posts at my link. Link up n' drink up. I'm a divorced, perenially drunk middle-aged woman...and I hope I never sober up.
Posted by KinkyKathy at March 8, 2008 11:14 AMokay-The one thing that this incident and the nafta gaff proves is that obama's staff [harvard profs and think tankers]are loose canons,acting on their own internationally.Yep-that's the politics of change all right-no "commander-in-chief"here-just governing by advisors.HMMMMMM....isn't that what we have experienced through the shrub? This is the Keystone Cops at best.When you add this to Obamas dubious relationship with his anti-semite pastor and Louis Farrakan [weak "rejection" of statements-not the rest of Farrakan's career] you have to ask WHO is actually running this ship? Wake up Koolade drinkers-his staff has more to say than he does-read between the lines.If each of these problems came out oh the clinton staff you would be all over her with outrage.Bring on some grown-ups-PLEASE!!!!
Posted by Still 4 Hil at March 8, 2008 04:35 PM