Charming

Obama's key foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, calls Hillary Clinton "a monster."

"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything. ...You just look at her and think: ergh.

And then, to boot, she goes on to imply that poor, working class Americans are daft.

"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."

As opposed to calling her a monster, which is lovely.

Powers has apologized to Hillary Clinton and to Obama, her boss, "who has made very clear that these kinds of expressions should have no place in American politics" and "decries such characterizations which have no place in this campaign." One would think he'd thusly be unwilling to employ an aide so rude (not to mention daft and incompetent) as to call his opponent "a monster" during an on-the-record interview, though Powers continues to serve as an advisor (so far).

Personally, I don't think someone should be shitcanned for that sort of thing, but Obama's run on a platform of transcendence, change, unity, blah blah blah, as if he isn't willing to get in the muck as deep as anyone (which he is), so he's painted himself into a corner and looks like a hypocrite if he keeps her on staff. Which is why I've hated this "above it all" posture from the beginning; it ties his hands, and it's tough to deal with the mudslinging GOP without getting your hands dirty.

UPDATE: Powers has resigned. Well, that's too bad. I really think that if Obama hadn't been singing that "new kind of politics" song, an apology would have been sufficient.