I actually had the opposite response from you; I read the transcript first and responded--well, you can see my first post. I thought it was just the media's trying to fill in their "He's a hothead" storyline. But, honestly, after seeing the video you (or was it X?) posted, I can kind of see that this looks really typical for him and it's disturbing. Like tyrannical or something. I was particularly bothered by his talking over the reporter and continuing to bring up more points over her follow-up questions. He looks very much like a man used to getting his way, controlling others, and wanting to be surrounded by yes-men. I would absolutely not want to be a dissenter in his cabinet. All of a sudden, I think his personality is a highly relevant topic.

PS I think her "never mind" was relevant, too, don't you? It struck me as her being afraid to pursue.

But maybe this is the way it always is with reporters and their subjects. Maybe reporters have to suck up and be deferential and the celebrity/pol is always in the driver's seat acting controlling. Is this typical does anybody know?

Al Gore, who was accused of lying if he accidentally mentioned the wrong time.

Reporter: "It's clearly written here that you said no four years ago and now you're saying yes."

Al Gore: "You know darn well it's yes; everyone knows it's yes, so stop asking me you twerp!"

Reporter: "Never mind."

Kudos to whoever brought up that we're all missing the point: He's lying.

which is why it's such a shame that she's no longer advising the Obama campaign. I wouldn't care if she threw herself at the mercy of the Clinton campaign and got hired there, just so she's on somebody's team and becomes the next Secretary of State.

What she says is so obvious that it defies further deconstruction. It's what many of us--Obama and Hillary supporters alike--said when word came out that a military advisor to Clinton suggested the same thing (that Clinton would not be able to stick to her "campaign plan.")

Surely we have not gone so far down the cheer-for-our-own-team-only road that we don't see the wisdom of this woman's words. David Brooks wrote several weeks ago that the undoing of the Democratic Party, even if they win, will be the disconnect between what they promised in Iraq (or, perhaps more accurately, what people believe they promised) and what either candidate will possibly be able to deliver. I've complained before and at the risk of sounding like a broken record: Gotcha questioners in debates have forced these candidates into straitjacketed positions on policy that they will now have to try to live up to. This kind of post facto (is that the right Latin expression?) policy making is crazy. (Whatever I get cornered into promising in the debate will now have to become U.S. policy.")

It's unconscionable that either candidate should use this kind of thing against the other--on the war or NAFTA--as both of them have essentially the same position on those issues and both want NOT to be tied to their fuzzier "campaign positions." All this does is further curtail their natural speech in public and debate forums and bring us (back) to the age of completely scripted candidates.

It would be nice if both candidates could say what Power herself said, that it would be silly to be tied to a position crafted during a campaign before all of the information is in the candidate's hands, but it's awfully hard to maintain that level of nuance when you are being pointed and shouted at by Tim Russert, who's demanding a precise hour of troop deployment and a blood-oath. When anyone tries to remain vague for the purpose of preserving complexity, s/he is inevitably hammered the next day, as happened in several debates when some of them refused to play the moderator's game.

because I know I don't really mean that candidates should be able to "say anything" during the silly season and not be held accountable for it, which might be how my last post is construed. But, really, how much specificity is realistic?

As I think about it, I draw a distinction between (1) being vague/covering all the bases for the purposes of capturing more voters in one's net, as perhaps both candidates did on NAFTA in the Cleveland debate, and (2) a deliberate attempt at obtuseness on an issue as complex as Iraq, where it's obvious that no one's publicly stated position--if pressed at a tactical level--could possibly held to the fire.

I think of Bush I who was ultimately booted for his "no new taxes" pledge. The truth is that he did the right thing by all accounts when he raised taxes, and maybe he shouldn't have made his pledge (Certainly his "read my lips" intro to it suggests he wasn't reticent or being bullied by the press into saying it), but at the end of the day, his ability to adjust to the circumstances on the ground is precisely what is best for the country, what we want in a leader, what GWB is grotesquely not capable of.

Is knowing all this up front and admitting to it candidly (as both Power and that Clinton general did) such a bad thing?

in making this a "gotcha" scandal. I thought the same thing when I watched it.