Campaign Hits Back on Power/Iraq [Updated: "Monstergate"]

Via The Page/Time magazine, statements from Gen. Wesley Clark, former State Dept. official James Rubin, and Howard Wolfson (with more coming soon following press phone call — I’ll update as it’s available) on the resignation of Obama adviser Samantha Power (and her interview is reaired tonight on BBCAmerica’s “BBC World News America,” which is far and away my favo(u)rite hour-long news program — it’s on at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. PST):

Clinton spokesman Wolfson calls Power’s comments on Iraq “troubling and extraordinary.”

Gen. Wesley Clark: “I’m quite concerned about what we heard from the Obama campaign because I’m not sure where it leads us….”

Former State Dept. official James Rubin: In Obama campaign “it’s amateur hour on making foreign policy.” …

Here’s Sen. Obama, in his own words, on the quality of his foreign policy advisers — voters will no doubt trust his judgment:

Obama: voters can trust his judgment when selecting advisers that will shape his administration’s foreign policy. The New York Times reported, “Obama has implored voters to consider his judgment in foreign policy…that judgment, he said, would be carried over to selecting people to fill his administration. He said his views were shaped by his foreign policy advisers.” [New York Times, 11/2/07]

There are more sage Obama comments below, along with a fine piece in today’s New York magazine Intelligencer on “Monstergate”:

Obama turns to advisers when formulating foreign policy positions. When asked by the New York Times, “When you formulate your position for where we go from here in Iraq, which experts to you consult with? What informs your judgment and assessment of the next steps?” Obama replied, “Well, we have a pretty wide circle of advisers. We talk to everybody from the usual suspects in Washington – various foreign policy experts – to mid-rank military officers, many of whom have served in Iraq, to higher ranking officers like General Scott Gration who flew repeated combat missions and has helped to advise us on a range of these issues and people like Richard Danzig, who is one of our key foreign policy advisers. So it’s a pretty wide circle. [New York Times, 11/1/07 ]

Obama ‘answered that he would surround himself with competent people.’ A voted in New Hampshire “asked how he would choose the staff and advisers who would help him make decisions. Obama answered that he would surround himself with competent people with integrity and independence _ like Abraham Lincoln, he said. He pointed out that Lincoln also was a former Illinois legislator who faced great skepticism about his experience. ”I guess that was a leap of faith, too,” Obama said.” [AP, 8/23/07]

Now, the New York magazine commentary today, “Heilemann: Can Obama Handle the Awakened Media Beast?“:

So what to make of Monstergate? On the surface, the campaign controversy du jour could hardly be a more straightforward story. … This morning, as word of the incendiary indiscretion spread (the story led the Today show) and the fever mounted, a number of congressional Clinton backers demanded that Power resign from the campaign. “It’s really a test for Obama,” said Representative Nita Lowey of New York, and she was right. …

But Monstergate, I think, reflects something deeper: the fact that many of the people around Obama have grown accustomed to, shall we say, a forgiving national press corps. Retroactive declarations of off-the-recordness happen all the time. Whether the journalist confronted with one chooses to let it slide or be a hard-ass is a matter of discretion. How much do you like the source? How much do you need the source? It’s fair to say that many people in Obama’s circle believe that Clinton is in fact a monster. Many have said something similar to reporters. And this was not the first time one of them slipped up on attribution. But until now, the press, as part of a broader pattern of kid-gloves treatment of Obama, has largely chosen to let those mistakes pass. And that has bred a certain sloppiness — one that, in the case of Power, has now come back to bite them.

This sloppiness is not confined to dealing with the press. Much has been written about the case of Obama’s economic guru, Austan Goolsbee, and the Canadians, but it’s worth revisiting in the context of Monstergate. In telling the Canucks to pay no attention to his boss’ saber-rattling on NAFTA, Goolsbee was being candid and stating the plain truth: Nobody who knows Obama believes for a second that he is anything but a staunch free trader; they know that he has no intention of trashing the trade treaty. But Goolsbee was also being sloppy. And so was the campaign in its ludicrously transparent, transparently ludicrous efforts to mislead the press about what occurred. (The Canadians contacted Goolsbee not in his capacity as Obama’s guy on economics but merely as a University of Chicago academic? As Bill Clinton might put it, Give me a break!) The whole imbroglio fairly reeked of an operation that had become accustomed — too accustomed for its own good — to a sleepy, besotted press corps.

By now, of course, it’s clear to anyone with two eyes in his head that the kid-gloves days are over for Obama. …

[...]

Few campaigns I’ve ever covered have been run with as much skill and discipline as Obama’s has. His chief strategist, David Axelrod, handles the press with aplomb and savvy. Robert Gibbs, his communications czar, is one tough cookie. But the rest of Obama’s adjutants — and the candidate himself — had better get with the program. The Media Beast, after months of blissful slumber, is now awake and as grouchy as an undercaffeinated grizzly bear. And the Clinton campaign has no intention of letting it return to sleep. …

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