Obama Aide Resigns After Calling Clinton a ‘Monster’ in Interview With Scottish Paper
Hillary Clinton speaks during a dinner in Canton, Miss., Thursday. (AP Photo)
An adviser to Barack Obama who called Hillary Clinton a “monster” during an interview has resigned, apologizing for the remark amid pressure from the Clinton campaign.
Samantha Power, an unpaid foreign policy adviser to Obama and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, made the offending comment during an interview with the Scottish newspaper The Scotsman.
“With deep regret, I am resigning from my role as an adviser to the Obama campaign effective today,” Power said in a statement Friday. “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. 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 had first released an apology, saying her remarks “do not reflect my feelings about Senator Clinton.”
Clinton praised Obama for the campaign response, but then tried to get mileage out of another Power comment — her campaign circulated a Politico.com story Friday that referenced an interview Power gave to BBC, where she said Obama’s plan to get combat forces out of Iraq in 16 months is a “best-case scenario.”
“He keeps telling people one thing, while his campaign tells people abroad something else,” Clinton said. “I’m not sure what the American people should believe.”
Before Tuesday’s election — where she won Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island — Clinton criticized Obama over a report on a Canadian news network saying his advisers were floating the word that Obama’s threats to renegotiate NAFTA were just political rhetoric.
Obama later affirmed that he would bring the war “to an end in 2009.”
“Don’t be confused,” he said in Wyoming. “When Senator Clinton is not even willing to acknowledge that she voted for war … I don’t want to play politics on this issue because she doesn’t have standing to question my position on this issue.”
Power’s controversial comments to The Scotsman came during what the newspaper described as an “unguarded moment,” as Power was describing how the Clinton campaign was stopping at nothing to catch up to Obama in the Democratic race.
“She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything,” Power told the newspaper, which published the remarks in Friday’s edition and released them earlier on the paper’s Web site.
In saying it was “off the record,” Power tried to withdraw her remark, but the newspaper explained at the bottom of its story that the interview with Power, who was promoting her book, was established as “on the record” in advance. The newspaper wrote that it was “too late” for her to retract her comment.
Power also told the newspaper Clinton was appealing to low-income voters by trying to suggest Obama would endanger their jobs.
“The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive,” she said.
Clinton supporters on a conference call early Friday called for Power to leave the campaign.
“Sen. Obama has talked about a new kind of politics. This is the worst kind of politics,” New York Rep. Gregory Meeks said. “This is personal character assassination.”
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.
Later, after Power resigned, the Clinton campaign sent a fundrasing e-mail to supporters pointing out the “monster” quote without mentioning she left the campaign. “A small contribution now — even as little as $5 — will show the Obama campaign that there is a price to this kind of attack politics,” said the e-mail from Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe.
Obama has said previously he would fire anyone using personal attacks on his political rivals — and the campaign quickly denounced Power’s comments, even before she resigned.
“Senator Obama decries such characterizations, which have no place in this campaign,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
Obama blamed his Tuesday defeats in part on what he called negative campaigning. His campaign has indicated it will escalate its attacks on Clinton in response.
Click here to read the story in The Scotsman.
FOX News’ Aaron Bruns and Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
I thought this was great…..“Sen. Obama has talked about a new kind of politics. This is the worst kind of politics,” New York Rep. Gregory Meeks said. “This is personal character assassination.” (read between the lines) THIS IS OUR KIND OF POLITICS, HIS PEOPLE ARE STEALING OUR TACTICS! I’m loving this. watching the Liberals cut each others throats and cannibalize each other! I may have concerns about John McCain, but I’ll hold my nose and vote for him in November, because he is still miles ahead of the political “Bobbsey Twins”. Go, Libs, GO!
Both Clinton and Obama knew this would be a hard fight, and instead of fists the words are flying. Both must be able to take a punch, whether it is true are false at 3:00 in the morning or 12 noon a punch is a punch. We as Americans must stay focused on the real issues at hand and not divide our nation into lossing this election to party infighting. Ok we all know about Clinton’s past and Obama friends, lets look to the future and keep the Republicans out of the White House or none of this dirt and mud slinging will matter in Nov. Stay focus for a positive change. We would like to see either in Washington in our life time. But remember a vote for the Clintons is a vote for the Republicans.
She told the truth.
Obama Minister Exudes Hatred
In a sermon delivered at Howard University, Barack Obama’s longtime minister, friend, and adviser blamed America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs, and creating a racist society that would never elect a black man as president.
This just goes to show the true Barack H. Obama and the type of people he surrounds himself with. Obama does not have the backbone to run this country. I will NEVER vote for a person like him. Should he win the democeratic nomination I will vote republican!
Will the REAL Hillary Rodham Clinton, Please stand up!
A March 12, 2007 article written by acclaimed Washington columnist Robert Novak sheds a very revealing light on the true sentiment of Hillary Clinton during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. Clinton recently was found to have minimized the great and monumental strides taken by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by stating that it was Lyndon B. Johnson, then president, who should receive the credit for the civil rights progress including the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The fact is, in 1963, not only was Hillary Clinton a republican, but she was also a staunch supporter of republican Senator Barry Goldwater, well known as a segregationist and one of the most vocal senato rs adamantly against the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is why he lost in his presidential bid to Lyndon B. Johnson. Novak writes ‘…how then could she be a ‘Goldwater Girl’ in the next year’s presidential election?’ He continues, ‘…she described herself in her memoirs as ‘an active Young Republican’ and ‘a Goldwater girl, right down to my cowgirl outfit.’
She has worked extremely hard to hide many truths about her past, including ordering that her 92 page college thesis that she wrote at Wellesley College be ’sealed’ and unavailable to the public, an order forced upon the college by Bill Clinton while president, although all senior thesis’ at Wellesley have been available for public reading for over 100 years, except one….Hillary Rodham Clinton’s.
AAARRG!
Who cares?!!! They both are an embarassment to everything this beautiful country was founded on:
1) Government IS the problem! Not the solution.
Defense!! Defense/Intel spending needs to be locked in to the budget adjusted for inflation permanently! For instance, there should be a floor that can NEVER be lowered: i.e. never spend less then 10% on defense!
2) Anyone who looks to the government to help them to ‘level the playing field’ deserves what they will get!
3) Health care ‘crisis’..lol! Please! Simple solution:
Take a 30% cut in social(ist) programs and spend 75% of that on health care for those making under a certain amount… take the remaining 25% and give it BACK TO US!!!
4) Tax credit vouchers for schools! Those that want to send their kids to public schools still can, but those who do not, do not! Then the free market competition will force schools to step up their game!
5) Illegal Immigration: Again… simple: a) Fence b) Tax incentives for corperations that require legal documentation of all workers and taxation penalties for those that do not! DONE!
6) TaXEs: Easiest of all: Cut taxes to the following: a) 20k and under pay nada b) 20-60k pay 10% c) 60-150k pay 20% and d) over 150k pay 25%… DONE!
7) Govt social programs get obliterated and replaced with the following:
Instead of paying people to vote Democrat (which is what the programs are anyway), just begin a massive scientific, industrial push to reinvent american cities and roads and science!!!! Offer these industrial jobs to the non-working Americans that can still work! This cuts the need for social programs by up to 50 - 70%. Now, the rest that legitimatly can not work can of course be taken care of.
I can go on and on and on…lol
Please, let us save the country and by so doing, the world from the coming desaster!
For anyone familiar with the Bible and more specifically, Revelations… you know why this is so scary…hehe
Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t give you two cents for any of these three candidates; they are in it for one reason; political power to control your money. They care about you? wrong! They are all consumed with their own personal glory. It’s absolutely amazing how ignorent they are on the economy, the capitalistic system and the free market. What’s more amazing is that the American people buy into their claptrap. The government IS the problem and people can’t seem to understand that. None of these candidates will solve any of these problems everyone seems to think we have. We truly are heading fast toward the “Nanny State.”
this is usual clinton tactic, its ok if our team says anythin they want about Obama and its ok but if anything is said about the clintons she get to play the poor me card and people fall for it. What is worse the media who fear the clintons seem to fall in line. there are alot of things the media could report about like Naftagate, Peter Paul, tax returns, pardons, white house records, filegate, whitewater, travelgate, etc., etc., etc!!!!!! but only put these issues on blogs where only a few people could read obout. What i also find funny even if she does steal the whitehouse what next, all the things she promises to do has to be in conjunction with the senate and congress, and becouse she is so disliked be the republicans and will have steped on some major democrates to get to the whitwhouse she will not be able to get any laws passed without a union of party lines. good luck with that!!!!! by the way for any of the blogers out htere who are defending the clinton camp and are not from a big state remember her team said that your state is not inportant to her and she does not need these states. at least sen. Obama says every one and every state is important.
All you Obama bashers. Hillary is a ‘Monste’ because she did not tell her ‘followers’ that the woman resigned. She is the dirtiest, nastiest person I have ever seen run for a public office.