Obama Adviser Brzezinski: Power Shouldn't Have Resigned
Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski seems to think that departed Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power got a raw deal.
In response to a request for reaction to her resignation earlier today, the office of Brzezinski—another of Obama's foreign policy advisers—relayed the following statement: "I think an expression of regret for using an inappropriate description of Senator Clinton should have sufficed. And I don't think she should have resigned."
The Obama campaign said Power tendered her resignation on her own the morning after the publication of an interview with a Scottish newspaper in which she called Hillary Clinton a "monster."
"She submitted the resignation," said a source in the Obama campaign. "She made this decision on her own to submit her resignation and we accepted it. Obviously, there was a lot of pressure from outside sources. "
But Power seemed to suggest in an interview with Irish radio yesterday that the decision on how or whether to sanction her would be the Obama campaign's, saying, “I think that’s coming today. I suspect the guillotine is hanging over my head.”
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"A President has to rise to lift our spirits with the language he speaks. All of our great Presidents have had to do that. I don't like the criticisms of Barack Obama."
David McCullough, Author - "John Adams"
Of course she shouldn't have resigned. Politics is war, and this primary is the equivalent to world war III. I urge Obama to destroy Hillary; he will gain much more than he loses. I urge McCain in the general election to call out Obama on his lack of experience, patriotism, and nutty wife.
Divide, Conquer, Destroy. These are the three most important things to remember when running a campaign. Americans like a winner, not a whiner, who spouts about hope. Concrete actions. Decisive.
============================================================POWER RESIGNATION DEMONSTRATES THAT OBAMA IS TOO WEAK TO WIN. ..HILLARY DESCRIBED THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN AS LIKE "KARL ROVE" AND "KEN STARR" --- TWO DEMEANING CHARACTER ASSASINTAIONS IN THE EYES OF DEMOCRATS --- BUT THAT WAS OK. AS SOON AS AN OBAMA AIDE CHARACTERIZES HILLARY IN AN UNFLATERING MANOR --- OBAMA CAVES IN AND FIRES HIS AIDE.
OBAMA IS TOO WEAK TO BEAT THE LIKES OF THE GUTTER-POLITICIANS LIKE THE CLINTONS.
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============================================================POWER RESIGNATION DEMONSTRATES THAT OBAMA IS TOO WEAK TO WIN. ..HILLARY DESCRIBED THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN AS LIKE "KARL ROVE" AND "KEN STARR" --- TWO DEMEANING CHARACTER ASSASINTAIONS IN THE EYES OF DEMOCRATS --- BUT THAT WAS OK. AS SOON AS AN OBAMA AIDE CHARACTERIZES HILLARY IN AN UNFLATERING MANOR --- OBAMA CAVES IN AND FIRES HIS AIDE.
OBAMA IS TOO WEAK TO BEAT THE LIKES OF THE GUTTER-POLITICIANS LIKE THE CLINTONS.
===========================================================
STILL WAITING FOR HILLARY'S APOLOGIES FOR REFERRING TO OBAMA CAMPAIGN AS "KARL ROVE" AND "KEN STARR" LIKE --- BECAUSE OBAMA CALLED FOR HILLARY TO RELEASE HER - 2006 - INCOME TAX RETURNS. - HILLARY IS A DECEITFUL, GUTTER-POLITICIAN. - HILLARY IS HIDING FOREIGN INCOME FROM OIL-PRICE-GOUGING COUNTRIES FROM THE VOTING PUBLIC. LET'S SEE HER TAX RETURNS.
Getting canned (or condemned) for telling the truth. Clinton has been down and dirty for much longer that anyone on the Obama campaign. But ain't this something else that Obama has to get in the gutter in order to keep his candidacy alive in this campaign?
Getting canned (or condemned) for telling the truth. Clinton has been down and dirty for much longer that anyone on the Obama campaign. But ain't this something else that Obama has to get in the gutter in order to keep his candidacy alive in this campaign?
Ed posted :RESIGNATION DEMONSTRATES THAT OBAMA IS TOO WEAK TO WIN. ..
Very disturbing to see Obama camp cave.Seems like John Kerry all over again.
Obama has run a sleazy campaign, while all the time pretending to be above the fray. He ignored McClurkin's bigoted comments about gays, and Michelle has been a sniper from the begining, and is now. You can be certain, behind the scenes Ms Powers comments were right at home and welcomed. Obama is a pretender, it's time the curtains were drawn and the ugly interworkings exposed.
Guillotine? Is this professor serious?
Ms. Power, think of another cutting instrument. It slices and it dices, and they're so easy to buy. It's the Vegematic for minds like vegetables. Chop! Chop!
This woman had to go, because she's dead meat with a mind like a vegetable. The Vegematic, in addition to being the perfect cutting instrument for vegetables, does an excellent job cutting dead meat.
I don't think Obama, now in a much tighter race, can afford to have this story dominating the news for a couple of weeks. Obama wishes this story would go away but that's wishful thinking. Hillary is going to milk this story for all it's worth.
Who is Brzezinski use to help destroy Israel with Power out of the picture? No wonder he's upset.
Obama's reliance on McClurkin, a homophobic black minister, to deliver the black vote in South Carolina was eye-opening. What's even worse, McClurkin is gay.
one past McClurkin gay sexual partner has mentioned McClurkin's reference to his small penis. I don't care how small his penis is. McClurkin is a big d**k.
If Obama's campaign generals didn't know about McClurkin, they should have. This incident is a lose-lose situation.
I think Obama should get a new 8-track player for the celestial choir tapes. Obama's 8-track player is obviously broken, and he should call Montgomery Ward's and order one today.
Lots of Hillary supporters here. Let me just say, she's been my senator for however long it's been now (seems like forever) and she's done nothing but run for pres. since she dragged her sorry carpetbagging rearend here. Our taxes are still the highest, unemployment continues to rise and upstate is dying. She's a phony, through and through. Just because she lived in the White House as First Lady makes her more qualified somehow? She's a dangerous, deceitful woman. The sooner we're rid of the slimely likes of the Clintons and Bushes, the better for us all.
For f*s sake, wake up you stupid people and realise that hardline foreign policy just leads to more hate directed towards you, along with terrible consequences. Scale back the military spending, pour more into renewable energy research and perhaps then you wouldn't need to have to steamroller the war-machine for oil. Terrorism is a catalyst for oil-scavenging and you can see it.
Please don't use all caps.
It is just so stupid, and hardly anybody reads them!
*Hunter S Thompson
Billionaires' wills are all caps?
Zach
EmJ
After doing a little research I have a few problems with your statement of Mrs. Clintons performance. First it would have been beneficial if you'd known she's been a Senator since 2000 and made her bid for the While House Jan 22, 2007 so it's unfair to say she's been running for President since she became a Senator. Second you complain that your taxes are still the highest and from what I've seen your sales tax is the same as California and you also hold a lower income tax rate by far than they do, so that's not really a fair statements either. Unemployment was also a concern of yours which to date has shot up to 5% (California has a 5.9%) but regarding New York is a rise that has happened in the last few months with the current events of our economy I would think it's not surprising especially when it's happening all over the country. There are some weather related problems that are a cause of this as well. To blame this on Hillary though with the notion that she hasn't been there for New York seems contrary to the fact they supported her bid for the While House. I admit I'm not as up to date as I'd prefer to be and that's why I ask for your contribution of facts on the matter.
So Hillary is not a monster. OK. Read your history and you will find that her social policies are not Socialist or Communist. The mirror those of Mussolini (Socialist turned Fascist). Bonito invented Fascism and his brand is the true Fascism. The only real difference between him and her is that Bonito was able to get the trains to run on time. Hillary (Bonita if you prefer) has accomplished nothing. In her words, when she promised to raise employment in upstate New York, she was expecting a Democrat not Republican president.
If you want to support HIllary Clinton, go for it, but don't try to paint this despicable excuse for a human being as anything else.
Sorry aboout the typo-
The third sentance should read- They mirror those of Mussolini.
By the way, he did a great job for Italy, did'nt he?
I will vote for Hillary, but it's not for the reason I see of most of the Hillary supporters. Both candidates support for the most part the same agenda but I want to support Hillary really because as I go thru the blogs for the most part the Obama post are so angry and hatefull I just do not want to be a part of that so I choose Hillary.
Worse than a monster, far far worse!!!!!!!!!!
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=14750906...
HILLARY CLINTON *IS* A CORRUPT CORPORATE STOOGE.
THE OBAMA CAMP NEEDS TO POINT THAT OUT AND SHOW THE PROOF!
I hope she changes her affiliation to republican!!!!!!!
I'm sure Powers was so used to saying and hearing awful things about Hillary Clinton around Camp Obama that it was just second nature for her. It's like when you swear all the time at home, and then you go out in public and let a swear word slip. Oops!
There is a lot of hatefulness towards Senator Clinton from Obama supporters. It's actually quite disturbing. I believe this hatred comes from the top down. In other words, Senator Obama has bred this contempt for Hillary among his supporters. Hope and change indeed!
This is why the Reps think the Dems are a bunch of Wooosies!
To resign over a comment that any regular human could make in reference to another during a heated contest is just plain ridiculous.
The Reps are laughing at the Dems - believe me I used to be a Rep until "w" took office, because I knew he was a walking/talking disaster and I refused to put party before country!
I suggest the Dems get used to "taking off the gloves" and prepare for a dogfight until Nov, or the Reps will scare the populous into voting for Reps.
WAKE UP DEMS!
Samantha Power should have resigned for her uncivil discourse while representing the Obama campaign. It's unfortunate that the virulent hatred Obama supporters exemplify should reflect so badly on Democrats. Former President--the only two-term Democratic Presidentin decades--is being vilified by Democrats. And, Sen. Clinton's progressive record is quite clear and available to anyone who cares about the Democratic Party. Yet, Obama has chosen to lead a "movement" of vile hatred toward them, first by invoking the race card to win in South Carolina, and most recently, by provoking his campaign advisors to such levels of hate that they spew it during interviews with the press. Sen. Obama is not the candidate of "hope" or "change." He's the candidate of the same old dirty "Chicago Way" politics. He's never taken a stand on any difficult issue. He's made one speech about the war--when he didn't have to vote on it--and then voted to fund it repeatedly. He's a con man; and unfortunately, it's the Democratic Party getting conned. I hope he loses the nomination, because any man with a thin resume like Sen. Obama's, who has the arrogant confidence Sen. Obama has, is a sure bet to be the equivalent of a political sociopath.
On a TV clip on Keith Olberman's MSNBC program, Hillary stated that the "monster" label was an ad hominem attack, while her team, equating Barack with Ken Star, was an historical reference, and therefore OK. In the future, it follows that Barack supporters then may safely refer to Hillary as Lucrezia Borgia an historical reference that then would be OK .FMR3Q
All you Hillary supporters are being used by this DINO. Shrill CANNOT win no matter what VooDoo math George Sr. taught Billy. Shrill has done very little on her own yet claims the world is HER oyster. She HAS answered the phone in the White House and then said, "Bill, its for you"
This campaign has come to reflect the deeper crisis in the US over our lack of clarity on foreign policy matters. Which candidates favor a build up in Iraq versus those who would have as their direct and immediate goal a withdrawal of US forces?
McCain's advisers are mostly the neocons who got the US into war in Iraq in the first place. They will not be aiming to pull US forces from Iraq. On the contrary, their war of wards against those they see as US enemies could easily spark wider war in the region. Their foreign policy team includes former CIA director Woolsey who has come pretty close to calling for sustained air strikes on Iran during interviews in Israel.
Hillary Clinton's advisers tend to be more inclined to agree with McCain's people on Iraq. The big question of a need to withdraw from Iraq is overshadowed by a policy to "fix" what is wrong with US policy in Iraq. This is a dangerous road in unpredictable Iraq.
Obama's advisers have made consistent comments to indicate that his team is truly searching for an exit strategy, though he too appears to be willing to leave US bases intact.
It would be tragic if the upcoming general election is decided over this kind of war of words rather than the truth at hand about the Iraq War, and that truth is that the US force is not able to create security. An international peace keeping team would be far more likely to succeed, and that is something that former Obama adviser Samantha Power would have been able to discuss with him.
I hope he continues to stay in touch with her and that this topic comes up in the future.
At the heart of the struggle is one glaring unasked question: Which candidate would preserve the lives of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians? Who wants peace and who has noticed the horrific death that has gone on in Iraq in general? After all, the Iraq War is not the kind of issue that should be relegated to the nationalistic debating team, the neocons. Millions of lives are at stake.
Which candidate would help foster global peace and a restructuring of energy policy so that we might divert the trillion dollar Iraq War budget into a plan for saving the planet from global overheating?
With so much at stake it's a pity that Clinton made so much of what Samantha Powers said. Actually, Clinton's advisers have said things that show that her policy has been to give a certain amount of positive lip service to Obama's idea on benchmarks for Iraqi leaders that would offer a way for the US to leave that at the same time prevents a larger scale crisis for the Iraqi people.
On April 15, 2007 Jason Horowitz called Obama the next "John Edwards" over what he saw as a foreign policy vulnerability.
This is what he said about Mark Lippert, a former Senate appropriations subcommittee staffer on foreign operations:
"Mr. Lippert talks about Mr. Obama’s plan as a somewhat flexible (critics would say vague) set of goals: the withdrawal of an unspecified number of troops starting May 1 and of all combat troops by next March, but with the possibility of 90-day tour extensions as rewards to the Iraqi government if it starts meeting long-drawn deadlines for progress."
He said of Hillary Clinton's goals:
"Mrs. Clinton has shied away from setting a hard deadline, although she has said that all combat troops could, under ideal circumstances, come back home by the end of President Bush’s term. Like Mr. Obama, she favors the creation of benchmarks to measure the shifting of responsibility to Iraq’s security forces and fair distribution of oil revenues, but she is alone in proposing a cutoff of money to Iraqi security forces as a way to force the Iraqi government to make political progress."
I disagree with Horowitz on the strength of Obama's foreign policy adviser. Also Clinton's team appears to have come out in favor of Obama's policy back in April.
Evidently, to Clinton the war of words is more vital than events on the ground in Iraq.
Breaking the Final Rule
Posted March 7, 2008 | 12:45 PM (EST)
Huffingtonpost.com - GARY HART
It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned.
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By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.
As a veteran of red telephone ads and "where's the beef" cleverness, I am keenly aware that sharp elbows get thrown by those trailing in the fourth quarter (and sometimes even earlier). "Politics ain't beanbag," is the old slogan. But that does not mean that it must also be rule-or-ruin, me-first-and-only-me, my way or the highway. That is not politics. That is raw, unrestrained ambition for power that cannot accept the will of the voters.
Senator Obama is right to say the issue is judgment not years in Washington. If Mrs. Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will be traced to the date she voted to empower George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That is not the kind of judgment, or wisdom, required by the leader answering the phone in the night. For her now to claim that Senator Obama is not qualified to answer the crisis phone is the height of irony if not chutzpah, and calls into question whether her primary loyalty is to the Democratic party and the nation or to her own ambition.
Doesn't his daughter shill for Sen. Obama on MSNBC...... she made a slip the other day and said she had family members who were supporting Sen. Obama ..... it must have been Daddy lol
Will Jimmy Carter ever endorse?