But for the grace of God &c.

Of course the silly thing is that this would have any impact on the public – anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the current Democratic primaries should know there has been some level of acrimony between the two campaigns, so that some members of either campaign being frustrated or exasperated with the opposing campaigners or candidate hardly seems particularly notable or newsworthy.

Now if they were giving a public statement along those lines, that would be different, but people that are part of campaigns this hard fought and are presumably significantly personally invested in the result, may be fairly highly stressed, etc., it just doesn’t seem too surprising that some of them would be making such comments in (presumed) privacy.

Bleh “In theory a student in one of Ms. Power’s Harvard courses might post one of her classroom comments …”

Yeah, “in theory”, but that neglects something like “in practice, it might be seized upon by a well-funded attack machine”, which is a bit different :-(.

Double-bleh. Opponents have been making hay of candidate’s friends and advisors forever. Specifics change, but the process itself is common throughout political history.

Actually, it’s not that hard if you were in government, say on the NSC staff:

– never talk to the press
– never talk to your friends about your policy or personality differences
– keep a daily diary to vent frustrations

It’s not all that dissimilar to being an editor of a double-blind peer-reviewed journal, or even a staffer with access to the data (as I was): never talk to anyone about what you do outside general terms.

Let’s not beat up Powers. Powers is not a career journalist in the usual sense. She interned at CEIP out of Yale, started as a stringer in former Yugoslavia for two years (a gusty move), worked as an analyst for Int’l Crisis Group, went to Harvard Law, and was hired to help found the Carr Center at Harvard. She was never a beat correspondent for a regular daily or weekly, where the on-record/background/no-attribution/off-the-record distinction is drilled into you. Her journalism is more int’l affairs feature-writing with an advocacy spin, closer to Ignatieff or Gourevitch (Philip not Peter).

#7 is exactly right. It’s depressing that this bit of flotsam makes the news.

I’ll join the chorus of “Why is this an issue?” above. The writeup in the Times (UK) was interesting to me, not for what it had to say about Power’s remark, but for this quote from an anonymous Hillary aide:

Obama has won the small caucus states with the latte-sipping crowd. They don’t need a president, they need a feeling.

That’s right: Thomas Frank’s “latte libel”, now being used not by the Republicans to slander Democrats, but being used by the Clinton campaign against another Democrat!

What next? Is she going to start calling Obama an anti-American pinko hippy?

I’m looking forward to the “Clinton-Lieberman ’08” bumper stickers.

Because our home-grown academics don’t seem to be up to the job, Yale University has hired someone who could bridge the political/academic gap: Tony Blair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/07/tonyblair.usa

Of course this is a fall-back position for him since he was rejected by a British university. It seems it had something to do with an obscure war. But the best is what Tony is going to teach.

“Yale confirmed yesterday he is to join the schools of management and divinity, at the campus in New Haven, Connecticut.”

Yes indeed. Management and Divinity. What could go wrong? Yale even has its own version of faith-based initiatives.

“Yale said that he will teach a seminar and be involved in other events round the campus, all related to examining issues of faith and globalisation related to his Faith Foundation. While at Downing Street, he read the Koran to try to better understand the Muslim world in the aftermath of 9/11.”

Yup, Yale University thinks that America has a shortage of jesus freaks and has to import them.

In words of one syllable, “Ouch.”

She doesn’t speak for Obama, and she doesn’t speak for the campaign, and not a single person on Earth honestly believes her name-calling against Senator Clinton means anything at all.

Because American politics- and political journalism- is teh stupid, that’s why

Yes, only teh stupid Americans think that lack of discretion can have seriously policy consequences. Only learned Americans realize that someone shooting their mouth off has never seriously impacted the course of history.

after a supposed-to-be-off-the-record quote about Hillary Clinton being a ‘monster’ was published by The Scotsman.

If the direct quote in the Scotsman article is accurate, she did not make the statement off the record, although she tried to put if off the record after-the-fact:

“She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything.”

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/39Hillary-Clinton39s-a-monster39-Obama.3854371.jp

“Off the record” is something that occurs by mutual agreement between journalist and source–the source speaks on the condition that what he or she says is off the record. The source doesn’t get to declare something off the record later on, without the agreement of the journalist.

Yes, but just imagine how bad D^2 would be in such a role.

The real issue should not be Power’s indiscretion at expressing herself in impolitic ways but the fact that she judges Clinton, who has a long public record, on the basis of how she handles her fight with Obama. It seems that the personality cult within the Obama campaign staff is such that political opponents are seen monsters – only monsters would dare criticize the chosen one.

Ron, I supposed Power’s “sin” (which I don’t think it is very much, actually) is that calling someone a monster is personally abusive. Expressing an opinion on someone’s experience (whether or not you agree that that opinion is correct, which I don’t) goes to ability.

Katherine:

You’re of course right that Power’s comment was overtly and directly personal in a way that Clinton’s was not.

That, however, is an observation on the form of their remarks and not the content. Clinton’s crack says of Obama that he has no experience worth respecting other than that speech, if that. Obviously, he, she thinks, has been unable to make anything of his time on the streets of Chicago or in the Senate chambers.

For that matter, length of experience is no criterion. The important question is what did you do with your time? Did you do good things? Clinton still has to face that question: her record on Iraq is clearly example of experience that needs interrogating.

In any event, until her attack on Obama, I for one found myself in that comfortable position where I could support either candidate. Not so after Clinton’s endorsement of McCain over Obama. My guess is that that’s the way her attacks will ultimately play with progessives (and congenital democratcs.)

That’s a strange question, Sortition. Praise for dead Republicans (whether deserved or not) does no harm at all to currently active Democrats. Even Jimmy Carter is unlikely to be offended by Obama’s praise for Reagan.

You might want to be just a tiny bit more careful in your quoting, sortition.

And as the NYT page shows Obama’s remarks on Reagan are pretty banal, and if you look the original video
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/VIDEO/80115026&oaso=news.rgj.com/breakingnews
you see that they are mere stage-setting for a larger argument. (In any case, Bill C is not running for President.) It’s surprising how many people have gone nuts over these innocent remarks.

The point you’re avoiding is not that HRC praised McC — I don’t see objection above to that by itself (BHO himself has praised McC’s heroism) — but that she has been saying explicitly that BHO is unfit to be Commander in Chief, and saying that in the context of a comparison between McC and BHO.

Now how that fits with the Clinton campaign’s simultaneous suggestions that BHO would be a fine Vice President
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/bill-clinton-ca.html
is beyond me, because obviously you would never choose someone incompetent to be C in C as your Vice President, right? A suspicious person might suspect the Clinton campaign of insincerity.

Powers resigned almost immediately, and I have a feeling it was not like Obama had to force her to do it. She knew that the campaign message would be harmed if she stayed in and she fell on her sword… Guaranteed she will come out of this ahead in the long run.

As for Obama’s remarks about Reagan, the only people who claim not to understand his remarks are HRC supporters who can’t understand why the right reveres Reagan. Regardless of your opinion of Reagan (and mine is very very low) he was dynamic and changed politics forever in this country. HRC’s comments on the other hand were aimed at eviscerating Obama in the general campaign and a complete party betrayal. That is pretty “monsterish” from a partisan perspective so I don’t think it too extreme to find that Powers was upset.

the Obama people have removed from the party the democratic vaules of fairness, integrity, and respect for others.

Well then clearly St. Hillary cannot win and should give up.