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Obama advisor resigns after calling Clinton ‘a monster’
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by Associated Press
Friday, March 7, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Barack Obama adviser resigned Friday after calling rival Hillary Rodham Clinton “a monster.” Samantha
Power, an unpaid foreign policy adviser and Harvard professor,
announced her resignation in a statement provided by the Obama campaign
in which she expressed “deep regret.” “Last Monday, I made
inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated
admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor and purpose
of the Obama campaign,” she said. “And I extend my deepest apologies to
Senator Clinton, Senator Obama and the remarkable team I have worked
with over these long 14 months.” Power’s interview Monday was published Friday in a Scottish newspaper, even though she tried to keep it from appearing in print. “She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything,” The Scotsman quoted her as saying. As
U.S. news media picked up on the remark, Power issued a statement of
apology and the campaign said Obama decried the characterization. Shortly
before she resigned, the Clinton campaign held a conference call with
several of the former first lady’s congressional supporters calling for
Power to be fired. “Senator Obama has called for change, and a
new kind of politics,” said New York Rep. Gregory Meeks. “This is the
worst kind of politics.” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson noted
that those involved in the Clinton campaign had been removed when they
spoke of Obama’s teenage drug use or helped spread the false rumor that
the Illinois senator is a Muslim. He defended his own comparison
of Obama to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, saying he’d been
responding to “attacks” from the Obama campaign regarding Clinton’s tax
returns and real estate transactions. That, he said, was a clear
reference to Whitewater and so it was appropriate to bring up Starr in
that context. Power also told The Scotsman that Obama’s team had been disappointed with Clinton’s campaign win in Ohio on Tuesday. “In
Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she
knows Ohio’s the only place they can win,” Power is quoted as saying. “You
just look at her and think, ‘Ergh’,” Power is quoted as telling the
newspaper. “But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about
how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more
effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really
unattractive.” In a separate interview for Britain’s left-leaning
New Statesman magazine, published Thursday, Power warned Clinton’s
campaign against reveling in the trial of Obama donor Antonin “Tony”
Rezko, who is facing corruption charges. “I don’t think it’s a
good idea for the Clintons to get into a competition over who’s got the
most unsavory donations, you know what I mean?” Power was quoted as
telling the magazine. Power is the author of “A Problem from
Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” which won the Pulitzer Prize
for general nonfiction in 2003.
