Samantha Power Rejoins Team Obama

She called Senator Hillary Clinton a “monster” last March, and it cost her her position in President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign.

Now, it seems, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Samantha Power has been invited back into the fold—she’s reviewing the State Department, which Clinton is expected to lead, for Obama’s transition team.

Since mid-November, Obama’s transition Web site has listed Power among the officials selected by the president-elect’s office to review national security agencies.

As one of the fourteen foreign policy experts who will focus on the State Department, Power will help the incoming administration prepare for Clinton’s nomination as secretary of state, expected to be announced today.

And Power’s return to Washington may foreshadow a possible government appointment.

A rumor that Power may take on the role of an official or advisor in Obama’s administration is making its rounds at the Kennedy School, said Leonardo Vivas, a fellow at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, which Power founded.

“We don’t know yet what position she’ll have,” he said. “But I think she’s a very strong candidate for a position.”

Kennedy professor Graham T. Allison Jr. was more cautious about the possibility of Power joining the administration.

“I think that remains to be seen,” he said.

Although Allison said he is not surprised by Power’s involvement in the transition team, her role does not “say anything specifically about whether or not, and in what capacity, she might join the administration,” he said.

Power will take a leave of absence at the Kennedy School to work on the transition in Washington, according to Vivas.

Allison called Power, an expert on genocide and human rights issues, an “outstanding thinker” whose qualifications outweigh her “monster” remark.

“In campaigns, people sometimes say things they would prefer they didn’t say,” Allison said.

Power’s remark, given in an interview with a Scottish newspaper, stirred controversy last March.

“She is a monster, too,” Power told the Scotsman. “She is stooping to anything.”

Power told the Scotsman that Clinton would fight Obama unscrupulously for the Democratic nomination, and “the amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive.”

The comment sparked an uproar in the Clinton campaign, which quoted Power in an e-mail to supporters asking for contributions to “show the Obama campaign that there is a price to this kind of attack politics.”

Obama’s campaign distanced itself from Power’s statement.

At the time, Power said Obama “made it absolutely clear that we just couldn’t make comments like this in his campaign.”

A few hours after the publication of her comment, Power announced her resignation from the campaign. She quickly apologized to both campaigns, calling her remarks inexcusable and contrary to her admiration for Clinton and the “tenor” of the Obama campaign.

Power did not return requests for comment over the weekend.

—Staff Writer Esther I. Yi can be reached at estheryi@fas.harvard.edu.