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Top Obama adviser resigns
08/03/2008 09:39 - (SA)
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| Barack Obama's top foreign policy adviser Samantha Power has resigned. (AP) |
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Washington - Barack Obama's top foreign policy adviser resigned on Friday after calling Hillary Rodham Clinton, "a monster", the latest round of name-calling in an increasingly hostile Democratic presidential race.
The same adviser, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power, caused a further awkward moment for the Illinois senator's campaign when she said in another interview with the foreign media that Obama may not be able to withdraw all US combat troops from Iraq within a year as he has promised on the campaign trail.
Clinton, meanwhile, hinted for the second time since her upset primary wins this week, that she would consider sharing the presidential ticket with Obama.
That could allay concerns among Democratic officials worried that the divisive and prolonged battle was undercutting the party's chances of winning the White House.
The developments came as the two candidates braced for a showdown in Wyoming on Saturday, a thinly populated state with few Democrats that under different circumstances would likely have been of little interest.
Splashed across the headlines
With Clinton scrambling to reduce Obama's lead in the all-important delegate count, that state, and the next contest on Tuesday in Mississippi, take on greater importance.
Injecting new controversy into the Democratic fight was Power, a Harvard University professor.
She told a Scottish newspaper that Clinton is "a monster". She tried to retract the remark and then apologised for it when it splashed across the headlines.
"She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything," The Scotsman quoted Power as saying in the interview conducted on Monday.
As US news media picked up on the remark, Power issued a statement of apology and the campaign said Obama decried the characterisation.
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.
'Deceit'
"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."
Power's comments about Iraq came in an interview with the BBC.
She said Obama's position is that withdrawing all US troops within 16 months is a "best-case scenario" that he will revisit if he becomes president.
Obama has actually shortened his original 16-month commitment to say he will end the war in 2009.
In Mississippi, Clinton questioned the Iraq comments based on Obama's public statements.
"He has attacked me continuously for having no hard exit date, and now we learn he doesn't have one, in fact he doesn't have a plan at all," Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Mississippi.
Her campaign sent out a fundraising appeal based on the Power's resignation.
Obama told voters in Casper, Wyoming, that Clinton has no standing to question his resolve because she voted in 2002 to authorise the war.
'I will end it'
"If it had been up to me, we would have never been in this war," Obama said, his voice rising.
"It was because of George Bush, with an assist from Hillary Clinton and John McCain, that we got into this war.
"I will end it in 2009," he said. "She doesn't have standing to question my position on this issue."
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe noted that one of Clinton's military advisers, retired Gen Jack Keane, said last week that she would not remove troops immediately upon taking office.
Keane told The New York Sun, "I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January '09 she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made."
Clinton said Power's comment on Iraq is reminiscent of Obama's senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, telling Canadian officials privately that his criticism of the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico was "political positioning" during the campaign in economically hard-hit Ohio and not an indicator of policy plans.
Different positions
The description appeared in a Canadian government memo, but Goolsbee and the Canadian Embassy later said Goolsbee never suggested Obama's public and private positions are different.
Recent reports in Canada said an official in the Clinton campaign also gave Canada back-channel assurances that her harsh words about the North American Free Trade Agreement were for political show. The campaign denied the report.
Clinton said the two instances suggest Obama "keeps telling people one thing, while his campaign tells people abroad something else. I'm not sure what the American people should believe."
Shortly before Power resigned, the Clinton campaign held a conference call with several of the former first lady's congressional supporters calling for the adviser 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 spokesperson 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 rumour that the Illinois senator is a Muslim.
Payback
Power's comment came as Obama already fended off criticism from Clinton's campaign for his pledge to sharpen attacks on his rival - a payback of sorts, he said, for the negative campaigning he said helped contribute to Clinton's campaign saving wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island on Tuesday.
Although Obama won only one contest that night - in Vermont - he still hold the lead in the delegates: 1 569 to Clinton's 1 462. A total of 2 025 delegates are needed to win the win the nomination.
But with their current elected delegate totals - and the number yet to be awarded in the few remaining contests - neither candidate will be able to secure the Democratic nomination.
Instead, they need the help of nearly 800 "superdelegates", senior Democratic officials and lawmakers who are not bound by state results when casting their vote.
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