Mudslinging Obama Adviser Steps Down

Adviser who called Clinton 'monster' lands national security role

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama’s national security team seems to consist entirely of people known for speaking their minds, observes Ben Smith of Politico, and none moreso than new NSC staff member Samantha Power, best known for calling Hillary Clinton “a monster.” She was booted for the incident, but that was just a “political convenience,” says Smith. “She wasn’t some political operative who had played a dirty trick, but an academic who tripped up.” More»

McCain, Obama break with tradition and carry their negative campaigning into the election's final days

(NEWSER) - Both presidential candidates are bucking tradition and remaining on the offensive in the last days of the election—a time when campaigns usually back off and focus on positive messages, the Washington Post reports. Barack Obama is spinning Dick Cheney’s endorsement of John McCain as a troubling indication of a possible Bush redux, and McCain’s newest robocalls feature Hillary Clinton’s primary season attacks on Obama. More»

NY Times columnists is sickened by Democrat's pandering

(NEWSER) - Hillary Clinton prevailed in Pennsylvania by dragging Barack Obama's bipartisan, hopeful vision through the muck, proving politics is “frequently mean and irrational,” Gail Collins writes in the New York Times. Clinton showed that the playing field is dirty, and that even the junior senator from Illinois would go negative if he was pushed. She also proved that nobody can match her for pure toughness. More»

New administration will need to fix problems Bush has not addressed

(NEWSER) - Taking the attitude that "since we were now all-powerful, allies were no longer necessary," President Bush damaged the US' image and diminished its power, Fred Kaplan writes in Slate. How can the next president heal our diplomatic woes?

1. Visit all Middle East countries; leave a full-time envoy: "It is appalling that President Bush made his first trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories in his final year."

Advisers talk up breaking from orthodoxy with 'dignity' doctrine

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama provides “the most sweeping liberal foreign-policy critique” from a presidential contender in decades, writes Spencer Ackerman in the American Prospect—focusing not on fear, but rather on what advisers call “dignity promotion.” Ackerman credits the candidate's brain trust with cutting through “Democratic timidity” to look at the root causes of anti-Americanism and address misery on a global basis. More»