IF HILLARY IS NOT A MONSTER THEN SHE IS THE IRON WITCH OR THE OTHER WORD THAT SHE REALLY IS.Leave the man alone he has done No worse that Billarys people making fun of Obamas middle name.Go smoke that a while all you Clintonites!!!!

I can see that. That's fair.

As soon as Hillary fires Mark Wolfson for comparing Sen. Obama to Ken Starr, Obama should get right on that...

The best response here would be to ask for Hillary to fire WOlfson for his Starr comments.

This isn't serious hardball - this is utterly ridiculous!! Within 12 hours, Clinton has had a very respectful aplogy from Ms Power *and* from the Obama campaign, all for a private, impulsive statement that she immediately tried to keep off the record. --- How long did it take for there to be an apolgy of any sort from Bob Johnson, who intentionally uttered pretty 'negative' words in public, in Clinton's presence. And has there been any rejection of the foul-mouthed denunciation of Obama AND his supporters made by the union official in Ohio, also made in Clinton's presence. -- And "Shame On You, Barack Obama" isn't a personal attack? Where was the apology for that?

Nope, I don't think this bit of manufactured outrage is going to fly even with those who normally buy into HRC's far too frequent "victimization" routine.

He should fire her, for sure. I don't think that she should necessarily be fired simply because of what she said, but if she cracked like this just under the pressure of the Ohio loss, it's better to get her out of the campaign before she says something worse and much more damaging to Obama.

If Hillary, God forbid, should become president, hopefully she won't govern in the same petulant way she campaigns.

I think for the good of the campaign she needs to step aside. Obama just doesn't need anything to distract him and to provide her with another "woe is me" storyline.

I am a certified Hillary hater and I think Obama needs to fire this staffer. (He can re-hire her once he has the nomination locked up.)

Memo to Hillaray's Campaign:

Obama should fire Power when you fire Wolfson and Penn, or when you drop out of the race for extolling McCain's credentials for commander-in-chief even though his judgment as to when to commit troops has proven to be disaster, not too dissimilar from Hillary's own judgment.

I like it. Good rule for moving forward. Anyone on either campaign who says something negative about the other candidate gets fired.

To whom has she shown the door over such incidents? I don't recall that. In any case, she has had any number of aides, surrogates and her husband say outrageous things about Obama with impunity. I think the apology is enough, and deserved. It was a stupid comment.

I wonder why TPM seems to focus only on these sideshows in the race. You seem to be jumping on the bandwagon against Obama, if not helping to lead the way. Where is the focus on Clinton's problems, if you want to wallow in the muck? How about doing neither and starting to look at real differences between them that matter?

"Clinton calls Obama a PLAGIARIST."

So?

"Clinton calls Obama a National Security RISK."

So?

"Clinton calls Obama a NAFTA LIAR ."

So?

"Clinton unsure if Obama is MUSLIM."

So?

"Clinton calls Obama Karl Rove."

So?

"...George Bush."

So?

"...Kevin Starr."

So?

"Clinton prefers McCain to Obama."

So?

"Obama aid calls Clinton MONSTER."

Outrageous! Shocking! Apologize! Fire the aid at once!

You know if the shoe were own the other foot and a Clinton aid had called Obama a monster, Hillary would have held a news conference and gone on every talk show in the country to make perfectly clear her disapproval. She would have said: "As far as I knoooow Obama's not a MONSTER... monster... monster." "I can see no evidence that Obama's a MONSTER... monster... monster." "MONSTER...? monster...? monster? No, I doubt if Obama's really a MONSTER... monster... monster."

In other words, in the very act of repudiating the crude remark, she would have magnified it a hundred-fold over three or four news cycles. That's not monstrous. That's devilishly shrewd.

And people wonder why Obama lost Ohio and Texas!

The Obama response should be, "We will fire her if the Hillary campaign finds and fires the person who darkened and widened our candidate's image for their attack ad. That kind of blatand appeal to racism is truly monsterous."

Give me a break. Hillary Clinton's campaign can dish it out but they can't take it? Cry me a river. I am so sick of this crowd. If she can't handle being called a "monster" then she shouldn't act like one.

Quite frankly, the Clinton campaign is in no position to assert the moral high-ground on virtually any issue right now. It is becoming abundantly clear the Clinton strategy is to damage Obama to the point the Democrats, the superdelegates in particular, have no other choice but to give the nomination to her. The math is not on her side, that is indisputable, so you have to wonder how exactly you go about ensuring the nomination irrespective of that fact. While the explicit argument may be a moral claim to the nomination due to her victory in several large states, they know, and everyone else knows, that does not pass scrutiny.

Typical that the Clinton camp thinks rolling over and doing exactly what your oppnent wants shows leadership. That must be the kind of "leadership" she learned in her extra four years of Senate service. The same kind of "leadership" she demonstrated on Iraq.

It's kind of hard to fire someone who doesn't actually work for you. I imagine Power won't be used as a surrogate much anymore, but these comments were made in an interview about a book she wrote, not official campaign business. As far as I know, Power isn't on staff with the campaign.

Greg,
Why didn't you mention Wolfson's ridiculous defense of his Ken Starr comparison. He didn't apologize and actually lied and said he was talking about Obama's campaign when he was actually talking about Obama. There are more grounds for him to be fired than Power, who actually tried to take back her comment immediately and has apologized.

Wonder why Mr. "Hope and Dream" ends up claiming characters like you as his supporters.

Jake Tapper asks the question on everyone's mind:

"In December, Obama said he had "been very clear to my campaign. I do not want to see research that is involved in trying to tear people down personally. If I find out that somebody is doing that, they will be fired. And I have been absolutely crystal clear about this, and I have been clear about this for a very long time."
Would this count? Should Power be fired by the Obama standard?"

This is a true example of the dumbing down of the media. I'm disgusted with the coverage of this non story here & elsewhere in the media.

She screwed up, she apologized - enough. Aren't people allowed to make a mistake?

Hopefully Obama will simply say, "piss off"

Monster isn't a four letter word and this doesn't meet the "threshold" of a campaign issue.

Well, the media continues to show how absurd Clinton's "bias" complaint is. They do exactly what Stephen Colbert told them to do at the White House Correspondents Dinner -- write down whatever they're told by politicians.

How hard can it be to trot out an even more out-of-bounds comment by a formal Clinton supporter?

Clinton continues to play the media like a fiddle.

i'm a dyed in the wool liberal, but nothing bugs me more than liberals demanding that people be fired because they said something that someone somewhere finds "offensive". we have to get over this petty crap, having this thin, easily bruised skin. do not fire her. she should not resign. talk about something important.

Proposing firing just makes them seem vindictive. It's like when HRC went off on that MSNBC reporter (can't remember his name) re pimping and suggested he get fired. Calling someone a "monster" isn't a great thing to do in a political campaign, even when it is accurate and deeply gratifying. But it's not a fireable offense.

Now, voting for a $3 trillion war that has cost countless lives and made us less safe ---- that should be a fireable offense.

At this point, the damage from the remark is done.

I think right now the best thing for Obama to do is to let Hillary continue to rant about it. She never seems to have enough sense of proportion to know when she's gone too far with a point that started out to be legitimate.

It's a repeat of the David Shuster firing incident. Shuster's language gained Hillary sympathy, but her relentless attempts to get him fired and in the process muzzle the press really showed her ugly side.

Just a question, unless she's being paid by the campaign, can she can actually be fired? She's an adviser, not a paid staffer. So the best he could do, if I understand this correctly, is stop taking her advice and stop having her act as a surrogate.

And frankly, that's what he's got to do, otherwise he plays right into the "he's all talk, no action meme".

But let me say this, Obama is at a very dangerous point in this campaign. Dangerous in that it is clear that his senior campaign staff (Axelrod and others) think it's time to return fire in the same way the Clintons have, and that, in my mind is a mistake. Not just because it gets him down in the mud and distracted from the issues (and getting out his message, but because they are missing an unique opportunity to win this nomination in a matter of days. I'm not going to go into details, but frankly I'm surprised that he hasn't used her embracing of McCain more effectively to alienate her from the Democratic Party. There's an effective way he could do this, if framed probably, which puts her on the defensive immediately, and brings back ALL of the DLC, triangulating bullshit without ever mentioning those words.

It's there for him. He can unite the party and take this nomination BEFORE Pennsylvania. Let's see if has the vision to snatch what's dangling in front of his eyes. Well, at least in my humble opinion.