In Confirmation hearing, Samantha Power disavows just about everything she ever said

[cali]

that was critical of Israel and the U.S.

This is from a very pro position:

<snip>

Power did have to dance a little to the Republican tune on the infallibility of Israel and the presumed moral problem of questioning its policies: In her opening statement about the benefits and problems of the United Nations, she referred to the Holocaust and “unacceptable attacks against the State of Israel” and said the U.S. “has no greater friend in the world than Israel.” (Though she was certainly correct about the U.N.’s consistent and extra efforts to condemn Israel.) When asked how she would handle Palestinian efforts at the U.N. to obtain international recognition for statehood outside of negotiations with Israel, she said the U.S. needs to “deter” such unilateral efforts.

She also tried to avoid a discussion of what America has done wrong. When asked by Marco Rubio about her New Republic piece in which called for “a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States,” she repeated several times that she thinks America is the greatest country in the world and would never apologize for it—without directly explaining what she had in mind. (Fittingly, it began as one of the more poignant moments of her testimony, when she noted that her comments took place in the context of a recent visit to Rwanda and the Clinton Administration’s response—or lack thereof—to the genocide, Clinton’s later apology, and the effect it had on Rwandans.)

<snip>

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/17/samantha-power-and-israel-on-the-hill.html

<snip>

But Rubio was the first of a few senators to raise several articles and interviews from Power's past. They included her 2002 call for a "mammoth protection force" to be dispatched to the Middle East to stem Arab-Israeli violence, and the suggestion a year later that the U.S. make a "historical reckoning" of its past crimes.

Rubio introduced legislation Wednesday to make America's hundreds of millions of dollars in annual contributions to the United Nations voluntary and give the U.S. the right to withhold funds for activities it finds objectionable.

Power said she long has dissociated herself from her call for an international protection force in the Mideast, calling it a "long, rambling and remarkably incoherent answer" to a hypothetical question she shouldn't have answered.

She said peace must come through a negotiated solution and that is why the administration is trying to get the Palestinians to drop their campaign for unilateral recognition as a state in multilateral organizations.

Pressed by Rubio on what specific crimes the U.S. has committed, Power, who was born in Ireland and moved to the U.S. as a child, repeated several times that she "would never apologize for America."

"America is a light to the world," she said, refusing to delve deeper into a 2003 article she wrote for The New Republic. She also rejected having ever referred to Iran's contested nuclear program as an "imagined crisis," as stated by Rubio.

<snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/samantha-power-un-ambassador_n_3611009.html

[geek tragedy]

1. The price of Senate confirmation.

The Senate is one giant fan club of Bibi Netanyahu.

[cali]

2. sadly true

but she also went back on her criticism of past U.S. crimes- like actions in South America. Yes, that too is the price of Senate confirmations in the foreign policy class. You must say that the U.S. is as pure as a newborn lamb and the greatest country on the face of the earth. And yes, she said the latter.

[boilerbabe]

3. Perhaps the price of senate confirmation but still pathetic and cowardly.nt

[HiPointDem]

4. "For Power, the United States is the solution, not the problem. These conclusions and policy

recommendations rest heavily on her spectacular bias in case selection:

She simply bypasses those that are ideologically inconvenient, where the United States has arguably committed genocide (Vietnam, Cambodia 1969-75, Iraq 1991-2003), or has given genocidal processes positive support (Indonesia, West Papua, East Timor, Guatemala, Israel, and South Africa).

Incorporating them into an analysis would lead to sharply different conclusions and policy agendas, such as calling upon the United States to simply stop doing it, or urging stronger global opposition to U.S. aggression and support of genocide, and proposing a much needed revolutionary change within the United States to remove the roots of its imperialistic and genocidal thrust.

But the actual huge bias, nicely leavened by admissions of imperfections and need for improvement in U.S. policy, readily explains why Samantha Power is loved by the New York Times and won a Pulitzer prize for her masterpiece of evasion and apologetics for 'our' genocides and call for a more aggressive pursuit of 'theirs.'"

http://www.zcommunications.org/responce-to-zinn-on-samantha-power-by-edward-herman

[HiPointDem]

5. Power has, to my knowledge, always been pretty pro-israel.

[GeorgeGist]

6. Polish that turd ...

And call it a 'Shining city on a hill'