Samantha Power has been called the smartest woman in America. At the very least, she's Harvard professor smart. She's foreign policy advisor smart.
It strikes me that she's too smart to accidentally call Hillary Clinton a "monster."
I think it may be the smartest thing the Obama campaign has done so far.
This is a brief, connect-the-dots diary.
Obama needs to prove to the media, the public and Sen. Clinton that his campaign has the capability to go negative. However, he himself needs to remain as positive as possible; after all, he's the candidate of hope.
Samantha Power has nothing personally to loose by making a jab at Clinton. She doesn't draw a paycheck from Obama's campaign, and she's not a political figure. She's a wonk at Harvard, where she's not about to loose her job over a slip of the tongue.
Power's remarks were worded very strongly. Strongly enough to get an AP headline that is sure to get play all over the country. So while her "monster" comment is getting all this attention, the other gems in the AP article are also getting play. Specifically:
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?"
That's a shot accross the bow if I've ever seen one.
Then to make it clear that he doesn't support negative politics, Obama forces an unpaid advisor to resign. Somehow I doubt he deleted her number from his Blackberry, though.
In short, the incident:
*Lost nothing for Obama or Power
*Showed some teeth
*Warned the Clinton campaign
*Showed that Obama had yet another youthful, beautiful, hopeful and smart player on his team
Is there a downside to this?