How Obama adviser Samantha Power was forced to resign

Less than a fortnight ago, The First Post wrote on this page about a 37-year-old Irish-born writer, Samantha Power, who had become a senior foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama. On Friday, after a trip to Britain to give press interviews about her latest book, she was forced to resign and is no longer with the Obama team. What went wrong?

Very simple. An Edinburgh-based newspaper, the Scotsman, asked her for her reaction to the Clinton victory in the Ohio primary. "We fucked up in Ohio," Power answered, candidly. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary [Clinton] 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," Power added.

The reporter, Gerri Peev, took no notice of Power's wish to be off the record and published the comment anyway. As result, the "monster" tag reached the States, where it was considered an insult too far under the unwritten campaign rules that prevent two Democrats slagging each other off, and by Friday Power felt bound to resign. (Continued below)

Peev's editor, Mike Gilson, not only stood by her, he positively relished the warm glow of publicity his newspaper - hardly known in Washington let alone Columbus, Ohio - enjoyed as a result. "We have no opinion on whether Ms Power was right to quit... but we are certain it was right to publish."

One of the many journalists to disagree with that cold approach is Sholto Byrnes, an occasional contributor to The First Post, who also interviewed Power last week, in his case for the New Statesman. Little knowing what was coming, Power recounted how Obama had called her out of the blue in 2005 to ask her about her Pulitzer-prize winning book, America and the Age of Genocide. They had a lengthy lunch and Power "decided then and there" to leave her teaching job at Harvard and join his team as an advisor. "There's no one else I would even consider moving into a hotel room for," she joked.

"I think she's been shabbily treated by the Scotsman," Byrnes told The First Post. "It is possible she was naïve, not experienced in having the spotlight on her like this. But that's just the sort of person Obama needs in his administration if he is to genuinely change American politics - fresh voices not warn down by the horse-trading of Washington.

"They may be rubbing their hands in glee at the Scotsman, but what's the net result? A very talented and interesting woman is not advising Barack Obama any longer." And yes, Power talked at length to Byrnes off the record. Which is where her comments are staying.