Friday, March 07, 2008

The Problem From Hell: Samantha Power

As noted last night, Sammy Power went nuts in public. She's been doing it all along, trashing Hillary to the press. She pulled it two Mondays ago in public stating that Hillary Clinton only began voting against Iraq because Barack Obama (Sammy's political interest) did so. She did that on Democracy Now! and, had it just been the trashy Amy Goodman, she would have gotten away with it. Juan Gonzalez challenged Sammy's abilities to peer into the soul of Hillary and Sammy backed down.

But the reality is, most don't challenge her and most of the time she doesn't go so public. She just calls Hillary Clinton vile names and those in the press chuckle along with her. It doesn't get printed and she's gotten away with conducting herself in that manner repeatedly. With The Scotsman, she didn't get away with it. The interview was on the record and agreed to beforehand. A Problem From Hell couldn't help herself, she had to (as she always does with the press) rip into Hillary Clinton.

Ms Power told The Scotsman Mrs Clinton was stopping at nothing to try to seize the lead from Mr Obama."We f***** up in Ohio," she admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win. "She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything," Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark."Interestingly, the people in her innermost circle seem to not mind her; I think they really love her." But she added: "There is this middle circle – they are really on the warpath. But the truth is she has proved herself really willing to stoop."
[. . .]
"You just look at her and think: ergh. 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."

At No Woman Left Unstoned (aka Common Dreams) yesterday, Ruth Rosen fretted over Hillary Clinton raising the issue of national security. Will Rosen now weigh in on how damaging a Democratic candidate's campaign calling another candidate for the presidential nomination a "monster"? Probably not. But if she does, don't expect Common Dreams to run it. As they've demonstrated repeatedly, trashing Hillary is allowed. Hiding your trashing by pretending to be 'concerned' is encouraged and non-stop praise of Barack Obama gets posted immediately -- even without a basic fact check which has served to only demonstrate how stupid so many pretending to represent the left are.

Michael Saul and Kenneth R. Bazinet (New York Daily News) report this morning:

"She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything," Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.
In addition to calling Clinton a monster, Power made other unflattering comments about the former First Lady.
"Interestingly, the people in her innermost circle seem to not mind her; I think they really love her," she said.
Power said Clinton has looked desperate in her recent TV appearances.
"You just look at her and think: ergh. 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," she said.
Late last night, the campaign issued an apology from Power and a statement condemning the remark.

The campaign issued an apology. That's not good enough. This is the campaign that asserts on its website:

Obama has emerged by displaying precisely the kind of character and judgment we need in a president: renouncing the politics of fear, speaking frankly on the most pressing issues facing the country and sticking to his principles. He recognizes that running for president is an opportunity to inspire an entire nation.

Already, the issue is being muddied. Chris Matthews was brought on by David Gregory (NBC's Today) and allowed to string together a bunch of words that said nothing and didn't address the issue. Some accounts forget to note that Power is a journalist, that's how she made her name (such as it is). Power is not an 'academic' who is a newbie to the world of the press. (And this isn't the first time she's trashed Hillary to the press). This time, the press didn't play by Sammy's rule and she finally got outed.

Power isn't just advising the Obama campaign. She also worked for him after he got into the Senate. She and her motley crew (which includes Sewell) have been calling the shots for some time. The same way they sell war as 'humanitarian,' they've cloaked their imperialistic candidate in 'compassion.' Power is very much a power-player in the Obama campaign.

Where's the firing? No one gets fired in the Obama campaign. One smut merchant with the campaign tells The Atlantic Monthly that the magazine needs to dig around in Bill Clinton's sex life last year and there's no apology and no firing. There has never been a 'hope' campaign run to the press. With the press, it has been non-stop gutter balls. It's been a little less obvious in public, but even there they haven't sent out the surrogates to trash Hillary (and Bill).

They have done that repeatedly. Sammy Power got caught and is truly surprised because everyone else in the press has just laughed at her remarks and left them off-the-record. This time her smut drifted to the public. It is not and never has been a hopeful campaign.

Sammy Power needs to be fired. If Obama wants to continue to claim that he's run a campaign of 'hope,' he needs to fire her immediately. His refusal to do so not only gives the impression that he can't control his own campaign, it demonstrates that an Obama presidency would show no accountability -- something all these years under the Bully Boy does not have the American people clamoring for more of.

Amy Goodman was gushing three Friday ago (while begging for money on WBAI) that Sammy Power could be the next Secretary of State. Two Mondays ago, when the complete interview was played on Democracy Now!, she was bringing it up in the interview. Sammy Power is very much a player in the campaign. If she continues to be one, Barack Obama is sending the message that he holds no one accountable loud and clear.

On Amy Goodman, Ava and I will be addressing today's schilling for Bambi on Sunday. To recount all of her lies (especially her self-serving ones) would take far too long. Yes, she lied repeatedly during her 'interview' with John Nichols who matched her lie for lie. It was hilarious to hear either claim to have watched Florida and Michigan since they did not and they were called out, community wide, in real time for their silence. The second segment was even more offensive as Amy Goodman went to town on a John McCain endorser, repeatedly acting shocked that the man has made homophobic comments. Of course, reality is that John McCain hasn't put him on stage. Barack Obama, however, put homophobes on stage in South Carolina and despite the protests over that, Amy Goodman never said a word.

Amy Goodman, concerned about homophobia when it suits her own interests.

No one's noted it in e-mails but Women's International Day gets less than four minutes though Goody promotes it in the teaser before the show and during headlines. Apparently, after you've written for a skin magazine, you think less than four minutes for an international action covers it. But if she'd made time for it, she never would have had time to schill for Obama yet again. There are so many lies and distortions in today's broadcast that Ava and I both have a headache just thinking about how we'll have to document them come Sunday. John Nichols' having finally cut off the curls, still sported his usual lies.

And NPR and PBS need to ask what 'service' is provide by airing Amy Goodman's obviously biased program?

John Nichols was the guest allegedly to speak of what may happen in *Michigan and Florida*. Nichols is a supporter of Barack Obama. Amy was happy to allow him to offer whispers (he passed them off as "revelations") that smeared Hillary Clinton.

Again, what is being accomplished by NPR and PBS airing this one-side program?

"The largest community cesspool in the country" is how the show should be billed. 68 Iraqis died yesterday. Amy Goodman had no segment on Iraq. She's not interested in it. She's interested in attacking John McCain and getting Obama into the White House. She's so interested in that, in fact, that she holds John McCain to a standard she doesn't have for Obama. If she's as outraged by homophobia as she tries to pretend today, she probably should have called out Obama's use of it in South Carolina. But she didn't. She never even mentioned it. Now she wants to take a John McCain endorser to task for homophobia?

Lou Dobbs should have Goody on his show now. He should confront her with her record, the way she did with his record. Her record can't stand up because she's trashed it by using her program to promote the Obama campaing non-stop. An NPR friend has been screaming on the phone all week about headlines and how her included quotes from Obama and Clinton -- in the headlines -- have been biased (biased in selection, biased in word count), so members e-mailing this morning, take comfort in the fact that her schilling has been noted where it can have an impact.

She's a liar and exposed herself as a liar today. Ava and I will be addressing it on Sunday in full. In the meantime, people should wait for Ruth Rosen's next column, to see if Ruth Rosen expresses outrage over Sammy Power's statements? To see if Rosen, who stayed silent during the smears of Hillary using Chelsea, has a word to offer. Probably not, because when you're fired from Real Media, you know not to anger Panhandle Media, you know to tow their line. Ruth Rosen couldn't get a job today in Real Media so of course she ended up in Panhandle Media.

She uses 'feminism' to play like she is proud of both candidates but, golly, Hillary shouldn't have raised the national security issue. Rosen says John McCain's camp will do that. Yes, McCain's camp will do that. The GOP did it in 2004. They will do it again. Democrats better be prepared for that and better be able to answer and respond immediately. Instead of making that point, Rosen plays a card we're all familiar with. It was used on Elizabeth Holtzman as well -- in the alleged name of 'feminism': women shouldn't want public office and they should be encouraging and supportive of their fellow candidates. That's a load of crap. Every candidate is in an election to win or they shouldn't be running for office to begin with. Hillary's ad was effective and it was needed. Bambi supporters operate under the assumption that no issue must be raised (it's why his foot soldiers refer people to the website and are ordered to only talk about how Bambi makes them 'feel'). They think they can offer some dopey New Age primary campaign and then, against the GOP attack machine, they'll be standing. They won't. Hillary's ad worked not because it played into 'fear.' Hillary's ad worked because it addressed the elephant in the room.

Rosen and Scheer and all the other reporters fired from their Real Media jobs (for good reasons in many cases) aren't elevating the standards of Panhandle Media, they're wallowing in the lack of standards and trying to play the American people for fools. This fall, all the cries of "That's not fair! Be uplifting!" aren't going to work on the GOP and Bambi's groupies need to stop trying to use them now.

Harvard's Sammy Power called another candidate in the Democratic race a "monster." That's not allowed. But don't wait to see Panhandle Media rushing to weigh in on that unless they can chuckle about it. Otherwise, they'll just minimize it. They'll trot out her lie that she's "long admired" Hillary. The reality is she has trashed Hillary non-stop to the press. This time someone printed it. She got caught. She needs to be fired for it. If Obama can't even handle that basic duty, he's not up to running for the presidential nomination of a political party, let alone the presidency of the United States.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.




Added: Dona note to C.I.'s entry above. Per C.I., I've added links due to the fact that so many e-mails coming into the public account express shock over the basics (such as the talk that Sammy Power would be Obama's choice for Secretary of State). C.I. also asked me to note that Mike's "Sammy Power blows a gasket!" discussed this last night. C.I. noted the topic in "I Hate The War" and, in that entry, noted Larry Johnson's "Obama Amateur Hour" (No Quarter). For those visitors e-mailing the public account and wondering why a wait to address TV on Sunday: since the start of 2005, Ava and C.I. have covered TV every Sunday at The Third Estate Sunday Review (there's one week where they covered a movie -- they came back the following week with two TV commentaries). They had hoped to return to covering entertainment televsion; however, that was before the lies of this week began airing. During the writers strike, they began covering news and public affairs programming exclusively (they had covered it before but not every week). For those late to the party, in descending order, here's what they've offered at Third on news and public affair programming during the writers strike:

TV: The strong and the weak
TV: Bad TV takes no holiday
TV: What's the measurement?
TV: Nah-nah-nah, Hey-hey-hey, Goodbye
TV: Cullum's Big B.O.
TV: Democracy Sometimes?
TV: The Surreal Life stages comeback!
TV: The Dead and Missing Persons
TV: Charlie Rose by any other name would still be as bad
TV: The Weak Get Weaker
TV: ABC's Cesspool
TV: 60 Wasted Minutes
TV: Fumble Line
TV: The either or

Ava and C.I. cover TV every week at Third. They write the TV features (Jim comes up with the titles to their commentaries) and they've been doing that since January 2005 (that month, we -- Jim, Ty, Jess and myself -- wrote them with Ava and C.I., in Feb. 2005, Ava and C.I. began doing the pieces all by themselves). For those e-mailing the public account screaming "tease" and worse, Ava and C.I. have to have a TV topic come Saturday night/Sunday morning. There's no way in hell that, on Friday morning, C.I.'s going to tackle TV and return to the topic on Sunday.

Lastly, for my mother (a huge Hillary supporter) this is "Hillary Clinton Statement on February Job Loss:"

Today's dismal jobs new should put to rest any doubts that our economy is in deep trouble. We have now seen two straight months of job loss, and the 63,000 decline in February is the worst since March of 2003. This troubling news comes at the end of a week where oil toped $104 a barrel and we learned that home foreclosures hit an all time high in the fourth quarter of 2007.
These are painful reminders that we need a President who is ready to be a steward of our economy, starting on day one. Because behind these statistics, every job lost means there is another family missing a paycheck, another parent worried about providing for their kids, and another family in danger of losing their home.
The time for action is now. While the stimulus measures in the pipeline are important, it's going to take more than tax rebates to avoid a deep economic downturn. We need to immediately extend unemployment insurance and invest at least $5 billion right now in green-collar jobs to help avert a recession. And we need a comprehensive solution to the housing crisis, not more half-measures and hand-wringing. That is why I've called for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures, a 5-year freeze on interest rates for subprime mortgages and a $30 billion emergency fund to help states handle the crisis in their communities.