April 19th, 2011

Power Points

Damir Marusic

The latest issue of The National Interest features a somewhat strangely disjointed profile of Samantha Power.

Two highlights. First, a personality trait worth noting:

She produces a morality play rather than a conventional history. In a sense, Power, you could argue, is addicted to hero worship, beginning with Raphael Lemkin and ending with Obama. In fact, in her acknowledgments, she observes that she offered “whatever help I could to Barack Obama, the person whose rigor and compassion bear the closest resemblance to Sergio’s that I have ever seen.”

Second: Did you know that a young Walter Lippmann drafted Wilson’s 14 Points? That explains a whole lot.