Author and Adviser Samantha Power Speaks Political Mind

In the wake of her resignation as an adviser to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign earlier this month, activist Samantha Power spoke Tuesday night to an eager crowd on the subject of her recently published book and her former boss’s presidential ambitions.

Power’s appearance at the Columbia Law School after an invitation by Columbia’s Undergraduate Human Rights Program was originally planned around her recently published biography of renowned humanitarian, former UN Human Rights Commissioner Sérgio Vieira de Mello. However, the discussion, attended by several hundred, fixed around Power’s political links and resignation in the wake of a newspaper interview in which she called Senator Hillary Clinton a “monster.”

“I made a terrible mistake,” Power said of her well publicized faux-pas, for which she has repeatedly and publicly apologized. “I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am about it, especially with such wonderful young people claiming to look up to me and my work.”

Despite interest in her “monster” slip-up, Power tried to focus on her analysis of Viera de Mello, whom Power described as a “Machiavellian idealist” who believed in diplomacy and “talking to bad guys” and who represented to her a new, 21st-century model for humanitarian work at a “trans-state” level.

“It struck me,” she said, “that there were very few people in the international circle who had amassed that amount of experience in that diverse a set of dangerous circumstances.”

In response to questions from School of Journalism adjunct professor Bill Berkeley, Power narrated Vieira de Mello’s decades-long path from student activism in Paris through hotspots including Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and East Timor, and finally to Baghdad and a 2003 death by truck bomb.

Many in the audience were also interested in Power’s insight into Obama’s candidacy, although she hesitated to go into great detail regarding the senator or his presidential plans, explaining that she is no longer connected to the campaign.

Power did, however, offer nuggets of insight into Obama’s worldview when pressed, including a reference to his leadership style, which she described by turning a quotation from poet Robert Frost on its head.“‘A liberal is one who’s so open-minded he can’t take his own side in a quarrel.’ That’s just not Barack Obama,” she said. “I never had a meeting with him that ended without a decision.”

“Samantha Power is an incredible figure,” Zainab Zakari, Journalism ’08, said. “She comes from a great deal of experience and has built trust in what she does in a time when we can sometimes forget that we can believe in this kind of work.”

Zakari, who waited in line after the forum to get Power to sign a copy of her book, said she did not feel that what Power jokingly referred to as “monstergate” substantially changed the tone of the discussion.

“That is uppermost in people’s minds right now, but I think most people were there for the work that she’s been doing,” she said. “At the base of it, I think people realize she’s more than that soundbyte.”

One comment from an audience member affirmed that opinion, although it elicited a cringe and additional apology from Power: “My sister wants me to tell you that she loves you, and Clinton is a monster.”

mary.kohlmann@columbiaspectator.com