Harvard professor Samantha Powers has resigned from the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster" while promoting her new book in Europe, reports Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press:

A Barack Obama adviser resigned Friday after calling rival Hillary Rodham Clinton "a monster."

Samantha Power, an unpaid foreign policy adviser and Harvard professor, announced her resignation in a statement provided by the Obama campaign in which she expressed "deep regret."

"Last Monday, I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor and purpose of the Obama campaign," she said. "And I extend my deepest apologies to Senator Clinton, Senator Obama and the remarkable team I have worked with over these long 14 months."

Power's interview Monday was published Friday in a Scottish newspaper, even though she tried to keep it from appearing in print.

Read the rest at the above link. This move relieves the Obama campaign of several potential problems down the road. No, it's not that she called Hillary a "monster." Heck, everybody already knew that. But Powers has a long history of advocating policies one would have a hard time squaring with any concept of "support of Israel," including putting American military forces in Israel to enforce a Palestinian state. The spotlight was bound to hit her sooner or later, and it wouldn't be a pretty sight.

But even that isn't the real reason she was dispatched - oops, sorry, I meant "resigned." No, her European book tour has given the Clinton campaign even better ammunition already, and the plug had to be pulled quickly. As Ben Smith reports for The Politico:

Power downplayed Obama's commitment to quick withdrawal from Iraq on Hard Talk, a program that often exceeds any of the U.S. talk shows in the rigor of its grillings. She was challenged on Obama's Iraq plan, as it appears on his website, which says that Obama "will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months."

"What he's actually said, after meting with the generals and meeting with intelligence professionals, is that you - at best case scenario - will be able to withdraw one to two combat brigades each month. That's what they're telling him. He will revisit it when he becomes president," Power says.

The host, Stephen Sackur, challenged her:"So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out in 16 months isn't a commitment isn't it?"

"You can't make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009," she said. "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator. He will rely upon a plan - an operational plan - that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn't have daily access now, as a result of not being the president. So to think - it would be the height of ideology to sort of say, 'Well, I said it, therefore I'm going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.'"

Read the rest at the link provided. Like the NAFTA kerfluffle, this actually makes sense - the high-flying rhetoric on the campaign trail is just so much red meat for the unions on NAFTA and the antiwar Left on Iraq. Powers is merely pointing out that being President is a greater responsibility than just running for President, and candidates shouldn't be tied down to bad policy decisions because of what they had to say to appease their party's base.

But while union leaders and members are rather used to this dichotomy and the disappointments it brings, the foaming-at-the-mouth antiwar Left is not so peacefully inclined. They take their commitment to defeat and retreat very seriously. So, Powers had to go.