I've had very mixed feelings about Samantha Power, or Sampo as you call her, for all the reasons you alluded
to on your blog though there are certainly worse people she could have
nice things to say about then Richard Armitage. I was actually excited by the suggestion of The Politico
that she could be Assistant Secretary of State for Policy, and at this
point I guess she would be my second choice for NSC after Zinni.
I had earlier concluded that the litmus test for her will be on Georgia,
which there are certainly reasons for any UN-crazy chick who rants
[Jack: this is what I like about her!] about "copperhead isolationists" like me to be sound on. And I'm
hopeful on this score after Human Rights Watch came out with a report revealing that Saakashvili used cluster bombs against his own people (and guess who sold them to him). The Times even had an amusing article taking to task the national security establishment for giving in to domestic posturing during the Georgia crisis against their better judgement.
But to repeat: from all the reports I've read, Susan Rice will definitely be UN Ambassador (despite crazy talk about Caroline Kennedy), Dennis Ross
is almost completely out of the picture (even more so than Holbrooke!),
Steinberg is the only real alarm bell at the moment. And when you
finally called me on my stubborn optimism in my last post, I thought I
was being more realist than usual! Yes We Can.
