Wednesday, June 05, 2013

CAN SAMANTHA POWER'S APPOINTMENT SURVIVE A RIDE ON THE RIGHT-WING CRAZY TRAIN?

I see that national security adviser Tom Donilon is stepping down. President Obama plans to replace Donilon with UN ambassador Susan Rice, whose appointment as NSA doesn't require Senate approval, but the appointment of her replacement at the UN does -- and her replacement is said to be Samantha Power.

So what will the reaction be among the crazies who set the agenda for Republican officeholders?

It could be rather shrill. Here are some excerpts from an October blog post by Diane West, a right-wing syndicated columnist with some mainstream cred and the author of a new book called American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character:
At her indispensable blog Refugee Resettlement Watch, Ann Corcoran wonders: "Are they keeping Samantha Power under wraps now so she won't be tainted by the Libya scandal washing over Washington? And, why would they do that?"

Power, with Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton, form the troika of "humanitarian vulcans" that helped drive Obama's Libya intervention, sending Uncle Sam to join the jihad. Rice and Clinton have been thoroughly "Benghazi'ed" since the consulate attack, with more of the same likely in store. Power, however, has not been part of the conversation.... Ann thinks the silence on Power is calculated to save her from Benghazi-gate....
West goes on to quote Corcoran's blog post:
First, who is Samantha Power?

* Power was born in Ireland and is a protege of George Soros. Update: Here is a better link connecting Soros and Power....

* She is married to Cass Sunstein, former "regulatory czar" in the Obama White House and author of a book Glenn Beck highlighted at length entitled "Nudge" and I think its self-evident where he wants to nudge us to!
(Sunstein is a wingnut Antichrist, as I explain below. --S.M.)
* Power called Hillary Clinton a "monster" during the 2008 Presidential campaign....

* In Edward Klein's book, "The Amateur", she was quoted as saying she was sick of doing "rinkey-dink do-gooder stuff" like refugee issues. Here is the quote as reported by Klein:
Among Obama's foreign policy advisers, Samantha Power, the far-out leftist firebrand, complained that the administration's cautious, first-dono-harm, approach to the Arab Spring had effectively sidelined her in White House Councils. She said she'd been relegated to "doing rinky-dink do-gooder stuff," such as advocating on behalf of beleaguered Christians in Iraq, and no longer had as much access to the President. She was itching to get back in the fray, and she saw an opportunity in Libya.
* So, she got herself in the catbird seat on Libya and became the architect for our involvement in Libya! (and what do you know—they produced more refugees!)
(Overheated emphasis as in West's post.)

And here's Amateur author Edward Klein in a June 2012 Accuracy in Media interview talking about Power:
KLEIN: Samantha Powers is a former Harvard professor who believes, and has written, that the United States is responsible for a lot of bad things in the world, and that we should go and apologize to the rest of the world. She has said so. She thinks that Willy Brandt getting down on his knees in front of the Holocaust Museum, or whatever, in Germany was the way the President should behave -- and we've seen the President doing just that. She is in the National Security Council; she is one of his chief political advisors -- very, very far left, and very anti-Israeli. Until his Israel policy blew up in his face, and he had to back off, Obama was following in Samantha Powers' footsteps.
So to sum up: linked to Soros, enabled Obama's "apology tour," enabled the evildoers in Libya, up to her eyeballs in Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! but sneaky enough to avoid consequences, and hates Israel. Oh, and one of her principal haters is self-promoting blowhard and Murdoch media mainstay Edward Klein, who was all over Fox just a couple of days ago on unrelated matters, and will certainly turn up there once or twice or fifty times in the coming days.

I think I hear Ted Cruz already doing vocal exercises, in preparation for the talking filibuster.

And I haven't even gotten to Power's husband, Cass Sunstein, who has been denounced by both Glenn Greenwald and Glenn Beck for suggesting in a 2008 academic paper (and I'll have to admit I'm not exactly on board with this myself) that governments might combat conspiracy theories by sending people to online or real-world forums where such theories are discussed so that those people might refute the arguments. He did not suggest banning conspiracy theories, though, in the manner of an academic, he did list banning as a response a government could theoretically take. For this sort of thing, Beck calls him "the most dangerous man in America," suggesting that he might be responsible -- this was in April 2010 -- for the fact that people were being photographed at tea party rallies with racist signs. Sunsteinian infitration!

There's much, much more -- see this compilation by Oliver Willis. (Sunstein wants to ban hunting! Sunstein is more powerful than the Federal Reserve!) And it's not just Beck:
Fox's Sean Hannity claimed that Sunstein wanted to "force sterilizations," which was untrue.

Rush Limbaugh said Sunstein "want[s] to control the Internet," but omitted Sunstein's description of that policy as a "bad idea." ...

Appearing on Beck's show, Fox's Andrew Napolitano said that Sunstein's "potential damage is limitless."

Fox Business host David Asman accused Sunstein of advocating for the "creation of a Ministry of Truth" and said his ideas "add up to fascism."

Clear Channel radio host Jim Quinn described Sunstein as a "Nazi."
So, yeah, I think we're all going for a ride on the crazy train.


8 comments:

  1. I can't remember why I hate Sunstein, but I did at one point have much more familiarity with his work and he was on the side of the pretty evil for part of it. I think, generally speaking, hes one of those law and society assholes who are too clever by half and who are basically very DLC as well as highly technocratic in orientation. So although his goals are (sometimes) meritorious his methods are almost always a bit straussian.

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  2. I understand. I finds the approach nannyish, and yet having your employer require you to opt out of the company's 401(k) rather than opt in seems like a real First World problem. In a country in which the safety net is shredding it really might be doing you a favor by, yes, "nudging" you to save for yourself. So I'm not completely at ease with it, but it doesn't make me think of jackboots.

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  3. Sunstein headed a regulatory office which basically hamstrung the efforts of any agency like EPA, FDA, or OSHA that wanted to, you know, regulate. He totally drank the neo-liberal KoolAid of market good, government bad. Government can't regulate well, in his view, only gently "nudge." So he's not so nice. With Power, meh. From afar, it seems that she's never seen a military intervention based on ostensibly humanitarian motives she didn't like, but YMMV.

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  4. Obama could have nominated Mother Theresa, hell, he could nominate Joan of Arc, and the right would find something to bitch about - probably powerful women.

    What I like, is that now that he's been reelected, he's much more 'in-their-faces,' jabbing away, instead of hanging back, lkcounter-punching.

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  5. Steve, bro, what makes you think anyone will make it through a Senate filibuster? Republicans can just bring up John Bolton and start dropping dire warnings about having to take action if the President makes any "clearly unlawful" recess appointments.

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  6. I know, I know. I don't even think Obama will get any more Supreme Court justices, even if there are multiple vacancies.

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  7. What's "thoroughly Benghazi'ed" supposed to mean, I'm fascinated to know.

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  8. Power describes herself as a "humanitarian hawk." 'Nuff said.

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