Obama's UN Nominee Has Controversial Past

Samantha Power, President Barack Obama's nominee for U.N. ambassador, has a history of controversial comments that are likely to come up during confirmation hearings.

Power has evoked the atrocities of Nazi Germany when calling for the United States to come clean for its own "crimes."

"U.S. foreign policy has to be rethought," Power wrote in the New Republic in 2003. "We need: a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States . . . Instituting a doctrine of the mea culpa would enhance our credibility by showing that American decision-makers do not endorse the sins of their predecessors."

When German Chancellor Willy Brandt "went down on one knee in the Warsaw ghetto, his gesture was gratifying to World War II survivors, but it was also ennobling and cathartic for Germany," she wrote. "Would such an approach be futile for the United States?"

Power also has suggested the United States intervene militarily in the Palestinian push for statehood. In a 2002 interview she said America should have "a willingness to actually put something on the line in sort of helping the situation."

She went on: "Not of the old, you know, Srebrenica kind or the Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence, because it seems to me at this stage — and this is true of actual genocides as well and not just, you know, major human rights abuses, which we're seeing there."

Those words concern the Republican Jewish Coalition, but White House Spokesman Jay Carney said Power has consistently stood on the side of Israel's right to exist and to defend itself, Fox News reports.

In 2008, Power backed off the statement, saying, "This makes no sense to me . . .Even I don’t understand it . . . The quote seems so weird."

During the 2008 presidential primaries, Power called Obama's rival Hillary Clinton a "monster." The remarks were meant to be off-the-record, but The Scotsman published them.

"But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive," she said.

Power ended up resigning from Obama's campaign over the remarks, and apologized. "I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Sen. Clinton and from the spirit, tenor, and purpose of the Obama campaign."