to being a "petty moron".

consider 3 scenarios: 

scenario-1: samantha power criticizes clinton for her (clinton's) opposition to nafta.

in this scenario, power is opposing a policy position that clinton holds, and her opposition should be evaluated on its own merit. as long as power herself is on record supporting nafta, her criticism is on sound footing (although it still needs to be evaluated for validity on other, factual grounds).

scenario-2: samantha power criticizes clinton on the mismatch between her (clinton's) public stance of nafta and her private assurances to corporations that might benefit from unrestrained free trade.

in this scenario, it does not even matter what power thinks of nafta (she may be for it, or against it); all that matters is the inconsistency between public and private pronouncements of a candidate, and this mismatch is worthy of criticism by anyone.

scenario-3: samantha power crticizes clinton for being a monster.

the appropriate response here is a 'meowrrrrrrrrrrrrr' cueing a cat-fight, paradoxically initialized by a petty moronic bitch.

just as carl sagan said that "having an open mind" is not the same as "having a hole in the head", one cannot automatically assume that all criticism is cynicism.

a cynic, in these times at least, is a realist who is prepared for disappointment, and not a deluded optimist who is in for a whole lot of dream shattering in the near future.

but "racist"? huh?

do you know what my race is? can you point to any statements i have made in this topic that uses the race of one or more participants as being a critical factor in my judgement of them?

or are you one of those morons who assumes that anyone who disagrees with someone who is associated with obama is automatically a racist---if so, i am proud to be such a "racist".

or perhaps you are pointing to my satirical point about the "irish" comment. firstly, i can understand your inability to perceive satire (it is a lost art on the intertubes). secondly, a statement of the form "i like ... because ... is irish" is about as racist (or not) as the statement "i hate ... because ... is irish". identity politics is always ---ist (race, sex, blah)---grow up and deal with it.

as to power's policy positions, why don't you enlighten those of us who have not had the "privilege" of listening to her speak what any _one_ of these positions is where power differs in any substantive way from hillary.

please make sure to point us to writings or speeches made before 2004---that is sufficiently recent so that any sensible person should have already formed an opinion about iraq and other u.s. foreign policy ventures, and sufficiently early that this person is not making statements in the midst of a campaign (where there is an obvious motive to side with your preferred candidate and make much of supposed differences with your candidate's opponents).