Power, also the architect of Obama’s excellent adventure in Libya, was supposed to have led an intergovernmental reform of the Refugee Resettlement Program which never happened unless you consider throwing more money to the contractors a reform! By the way, she once served as a director of the wealthiest refugee resettlement contractor (funded largely by US taxpayers)—the International Rescue Committee (George Rupp, their head honcho makes a cool $447,432 in salary and benefits which beats Obama’s $400,000 salary!)
Human Rights First cheered her role as Iraqi refugee czar at the White House here in 2009. But, by 2011 Power was quoted (by Joe Klein) as saying she wanted more exciting work then the “rinkey-dink do-gooder stuff” of helping beleaguered Christians in Iraq. So she moved on to working with Obama’s female hawks to oust Gaddafi from Libya (we see how that is working out!). Well, heck, the move produced a whole new wave of refugees in need of resettlement services from the federal contractors!
Power’s name came up as a possible second-term pick for either UN Ambassador if Susan Rice moved up to the Secretary of State position we all know went to John Kerry. There had even been talk that Power, a Soros protege’, might be in line to fill her nemesis’ shoes at State. Remember Power called Hillary a “monster” during the 2008 Presidential primary campaign.
We have a lot of posts on Power, you can check them out here.
The percentage of white men surrounding the President just went up!
Here is Bloomberg on Power’s leave-taking (for now anyway):
Samantha Power, one of President Barack Obama’s top advisers on national security and a longtime aide, is leaving the administration, at least temporarily, to focus on family matters, a White House spokesman said.
Power, director for multilateral affairs and human rights at the National Security Council, has served as an aide to Obama since his 2008 presidential campaign and is a Pulitzer Prize- winning author for her book on genocide. She has two young children, one three years old and the other eight months.
Power probably will return to the administration, though no decisions have been made on what her future role might be, according to the spokesman, Tommy Vietor.
“Samantha has been a powerful voice in this administration and a longtime friend and adviser to the president,” Vietor said. “We will miss her at the NSC, and we look forward to continuing the president’s work promoting human rights and dignity.”
Power, 42, who successfully advocated for the 2011 intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds, has played a central role in discussions over how far the U.S. should go to protect civilians from repressive regimes. [Her ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine is a thinly disguised excuse to send the US to war—ed]
[….]
Her departure comes as Obama has been criticized for not appointing a sufficient number of women to high-profile posts as he forms his second-term team.