More Samantha Power
- 02.11.2008 - 7:05 AMMartin Kramer points us to an interesting quote from the 2003 book Ethnic Violence and Justice, in which Samantha Power, one of Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisers, asks a question of David Rohde, a reporter who covered the intifada for the New York Times. The quote is as follows:
Samantha Power: I have a question for David about working for the New York Times. I was struck by a headline that accompanied a news story on the publication of the Human Rights Watch report. The headline was, I believe: “Human Rights Report Finds Massacre Did Not Occur in Jenin.” The second paragraph said, “Oh, but lots of war crimes did.” Why wouldn’t they make the war crimes the headline and the non-massacre the second paragraph?
(The article to which Power refers is here, and its headline is: “MIDEAST TURMOIL: INQUIRY; Rights Group Doubts Mass Deaths in Jenin, but Sees Signs of War Crimes.” Obviously, Power has misremembered the headline.)
Here we have another window into the thinking of Power: Israel is accused in sensational press reports of a massacre in Jenin, and is subjected to severe international condemnation; HRW finally gets out a report and says there was no massacre; the NYT reports this as its headline; and Power thinks the headline still should have been: Israel guilty of war crimes!
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February 11th, 2008 at 7:22 AM
Every time another Samantha Power citation comes up, I want to call all my friends in every remaining Democratic Party primary and urge them to vote for Hillary — an astounding thing, given how awful I think she’d be in every respect. There’s awful and then there’s beyond awful, however, which is what Obama and his staff represent. The media, as always, willfully ignores the extremism of Obama’s staff, something they would not hesitate to jump on were it Hillary’s, let alone McCain’s, staff.
The other day Michael Totten, whose work I greatly admire, wrote about Obama and Assad, and in that post he discussed how Obama is a liberal and not a leftist. I wrote then that I fear he’s more of a leftist, but the reality is that he’s an empty vessel who spouts fairly establishment-liberal nostrums on the campaign trail, but who can and likely will be filled to the brim with harder left policy notions once he wins the big kahuna. It would be very surprising if Obama doesn’t believe he was chosen to transcend politics as usual (translation: status quo American politics) and uses his staff to find ways to ‘transcend’ long-standing US foreign policy. He doesn’t think he needs AIPAC; he relies on leftwing Jews like Soros and young Jewish voters who have, at best, a self-identity problem. The Palestinians will be his first little project, making those of us now furious with Condi Rice desirous of a return to the Bush second term.
February 11th, 2008 at 7:26 AM
.
They’re all daft except for thee and me, and in truth, I’m not so certain about thee.
February 11th, 2008 at 7:50 AM
I can always count on Grumpy for a non-responsive riposte. Well done!
February 11th, 2008 at 8:24 AM
This wouldn’t be a serious problem if Obama had more than a passing familiarity with foreign policy and an identifiable and acceptable viewpoint. But he doesn’t seem to; his recent suggestion for a summit with all the Muslim nations so they can air their grievances about us–ntohing about presenting them with a grievance or two from our side–indicates naivete at best.
It’s one reason why I, a lifelong Democrat, will probably be voting for McCain in November.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:38 AM
By now, our schools appear to have educated most Americans to eschew critical thinking in favor of PC platitudes. This is the ideal environment for a hot-air based campaign such as Obama’s. It will be interesting to watch the struggle of Obama’s opponents, such as Hillary Clinton for the time being, to focus voters on actual facts about Obama.
I don’t hold to the empty vessel theory about Obama. He has to look like an empty vessel so everyone can place their personal hopes in him, so he has struck that pose by design.
February 11th, 2008 at 9:59 AM
Barry is imitating JFK again with all those upper-class-aspiring hangers-on. But he’s also a product of Illinois politics — just as Jack was his own father’s son (albeit not so much as Bobby). Barry isn’t stupid. He likes having a harem of Harvards but deep down he knows damned well who and what he is. How could he not? But he better have insurance for the day his worshippers find out.
February 11th, 2008 at 10:41 AM
Bob Miller: I think you are correct; I was a bit hasty calling Obama an empty vessel and leaving it at that. I should have said “he’s posing as an empty vessel” or words to that effect. I see a man who is far to the left, across the board, on most of the issues of the day but whose rhetoric is mere liberal-lite happy talk. The real Obama strikes me as someone who is more of a bomb-thrower than a peace marcher. On Israel, of course, there’s no question that his views are not merely liberal, as Eric Trager reminded us a few weeks back, when he said to Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah in 2004: “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.”
February 11th, 2008 at 11:27 AM
On the whole, I have a problem associating a politician from Illinois with “naive”.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:07 PM
Do yourself a favor and Google “samantha power marty peretz.” Nothing substantial will come up. Marty Peretz apparently has not said even one about Samantha Power’s relationship with Ms. Power. Once again, it is obvious that his well meaning judgment is not to be trusted. Peretz is too much of a Democratic Party partisan.
February 11th, 2008 at 12:46 PM
Obama is the supreme egotist. Here’s a man who thinks enough of himself to write two autobiographies before the age of 45.
People who worked with him in his community organizering days, said he spent a lot of time looking in the mirror. A big-time pol once said about Obama’s ambitiousness, if he could run for the head of the world, he would. (It would take me an hour to find that quote, but it’s in the Chicago Tribune.)