...So Did Ya' Get The Memo?

A journalist, writer and an academic. Graduate of Harvard Law School. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Senior advisor to U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate, Barack Obama (prior to her resignation in March 2008 that is). A woman who can shoot hoops with the big boys – literally –, Samantha Power has rightfully been dubbed an intellectual.
A scholar of foreign affairs, Power is currently affiliated with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, centering on human rights, genocide, and AIDS. She is also the first Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Kennedy. Not to mention one of Time Magazine’s 100 Top Scientists and Thinkers of the year in 2004 and Foreign Policy online journal’s top 100 Public Intellectuals in 2008(“shaping the tenor of our time”).
Not to shabby Sam (check out her blog). But within the debate between those who are considered intellectuals and those who are considered public intellectuals remains a point of contention and criticism when it comes to public performance – with a side of debauchery (a.k.a. “monster”..but we’ll be getting into that later). Public performance is a big part of the job, if not the job itself at times. While an intellectual may have academic standing along with an impressive resume of written work and thought provoking plans of action regarding their field of study, the public intellectual – as any other public figure – is expected to perform well both inside and outside of their established role (The “Decline of Public Intellectuals?” explores the impotence of public intellectuals in America who step outside of their own disciplines to comment on social and political issues).
To go a step further, the key is not to be able to perform once, but to be capable – at the least – in carrying a string of consistency through any and all performances within a public environment. As ironic as it seems, while people don’t really like performers, they ultimately expect a public figure to possess the ability to be one. Being able to take on the persona of a performer has become a bona fide characteristic for a public figure to establish their position as a cognitive leader (at least with our media – I’m referring to the Sarkozy G8 speech). You take any public figure from an actor to a politician and get either of the two out of their realm on a talk show or an interview, for example, and they sound like drips. This is clearly when they don’t know how to be themselves, or even worse, anybody other than their script sets them up to be. On the other hand, you can have someone so smooth, and charismatic, and articulate that they slip right through the television set and onto the couch next to you. You have your solid performers (ahem…Obama), the atrocious ones (do I even have to say his name?) and the figures in between who spill the milk once or twice and either get excommunicated for it or inducted into the eternal criticism hall of fame, but then manage to ultimately sustain their dignity.
So…has the ability to speak to an audience – and be good at it – really become the best judge of leadership? Are you going to be stripped of your “public intellectualness” because of one comment? Do most public intellectuals know how to speak in public? Well, I’m sure Mrs. Power (newlywed!) has something to say about it.
The trick lies in the fact that we, as an audience, expect public figures to juxtapose spontaneity and articulation, and yet we forget that when it comes to intellectuals (at least), all they do is formulate thoughts before they speak. That’s what they’re referred to for, to use the intellect. And yet we want spontaneity out of them. Again, we’re trying to establish the difference between a regular academic or figure whose response is immediate and without forethought and then compare that to, intellectuals who are all about forethought and reflection. What we come to realize (based on current expectations) is that society has developed the distinguishing factor – a public intellectual has learned how to do the whole spontaneous thing, too. They are performers in ways that other intellectuals are not (besides the classroom of course).
Lets trace back a bit and focus on where people feel Power took a detour from her otherwise superb performances. Okay, so from 1993 to 1996, she worked as a journalist, covering the Yugoslav wars for U.S. News & World Report, The Boston Globe, The Economist (my personal fav), and The New Republic (since 2007, she’s also been writing regularly for Time on foreign policy). Then graduated from Harvard Law in 1999, after which her first book – that grew out of a paper she wrote in law school mind you – won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2003. She released another book, Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, in February of this year (also check out Realizing Human Rights, Shake Hands with the Devil, and Darfur Darfur). She’s appeared in Charles Ferguson’s documentary No End in Sight regarding the Bush administration in the U.S. war in Iraq. She’s also contributed to “Screamers,” a movie about the Armenian Genocide of 1915 (you go Sam!) and the Darfur conflict, along with other genocides of the 20-21st centuries. Not to mention, she’s a leading advocate for armed intervention into humanitarian crisis situations endorsing the Genocide Intervention Network. Power has appeared on Newsnight BBC America, and BBC’s HARDtalk where she had brilliant performances regarding Obama’s approach on foreign policy. She’s lectured at the First Congregational Church at Berkeley in February of 2008 – again granting us the satisfaction of her rhetoric.
After a wave of impressive interviews and lectures, the alleged “doomsday” was on March 6th during an interview with The Scotsman (A Scottish Newspaper). She expressed the following remarks:
"We f***** up in Ohio. In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary 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... You just look at her and think, 'Ergh.' 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."
Hmm…was her comment indicative of someone who has a hard time conducting herself in the public arena?
She appears on the Colbert Report on March 17th to clear things up and explain how she didn’t really mean that Hillary is a ‘monster’ (Of course Stephen Colbert had a field day with it and dubbed Clinton the Cookie Monster, chiming in with “C is for Clinton, that’s good enough for me”). Power, on the other hand, asserted, “each camp has fantastic people left in the sandpit.”
There’s an interesting piece from a progressive online news center – Common Dreams – where this brilliant foreign policy thinker is backed up by the supportive words of Raj Purohit (Director and CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions) and Rich Stazinski (Director of Engagement). They asserted:
“We are not suggesting that Power's comment was trivial - it was inappropriate and inexcusable. But she apologized immediately, and did so before anyone from the Clinton campaign had even addressed the issue. The real question that needs to be asked is whether we as a nation are better served with a chastened Power in the political process, or with Power being driven from it for a regrettable slip of a sharp tongue during a heated election season?”
They continued with…

“The answer for us is clear: The United States and the international community need people like her participating in the process.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Are we seriously going to undermine Power’s role as a public intellectual for one comment? I mean, come on boys and girls, history goes to show that we have not only accepted horrendous public speakers as intellectuals, but leaders of our country – and Sam has to be the one to get kicked off the team? I don’t think so. Interestingly enough, however, is the opinion of Orikinla Osinach who writes for a blog called Nigerian Times. She’s clearly on the other side of the sandbox with this one:
“The problem with sex-starved women like Samantha Power is, Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. They envy the fact that Hillary Clinton is still married to Bill Clinton and enjoying great sex and looking great at 60, while Samantha Power looks 20 years older than her 37 years on planet earth. In fact, she would need extreme make over, lest she would end up looking really like the title of her prize winning book, A Problem from Hell.”
Funny how it always comes down to physical and personal attacks first when criticizing women. You’re either going to be criticized for your appearance or your sex-life in this case. Neither of which are relevant and are in fact insulting to Power’s position in all of this. Although the Internet has allowed for an immense outlet of thought to cascade through our computer screens, from the really positive opinions to the really negative ones, it goes to show that criticism is and will continue to be rampant for the public intellectual. We as an audience, again, are the ones who have implanted the notion in our own heads that these public intellectuals must function like robots and if they somehow malfunction, we need to send them to the junkyard (In my own defense, I’m talking about little speed bumps here and there, not a ten-car pile up worth of “mistakes”).
Power apologized to both Clinton and Obama for the "monster" and other remarks on the night of the March 6 interview, saying that they "do not reflect my feelings about Sen. Clinton, whose leadership and public service I have long admired." To which she added, "I should not have made these comments, and I deeply regret them. It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms."
After all the hoopla on the she-said-she-said, I have come to realize that in this day and age, with our news and media outlets supplied by an ocean of critics, an even more effective public intellectual is one who can step back into the spotlight after the burnt out bulb is replaced with a new one.
Power has had and continues to have a significant impact on public discourse relating to foreign policy…so why should she be given the boot for making the comment that she made? Yes, there is always a better way to express something in order to prevent the media from ripping you to pieces and Yes, this did happen during a presidential campaign, when it is crucial to walk on eggshells – for lack of better words – with your comments; but a “poorly-stated opinion” should in no way constitute the declassification of Samantha Power as a public intellectual. I don’t think I need to go over her resume again.