The Post Peggy Noonan Finished Exactly Four Minutes Before Samantha Power Resigned

The Hillary Clinton camp is demanding that the Obama foreign policy aide, Samantha Power, be fired. Power, of course, gave an intemperate interview to the newspaper, The Scotsman, calling Mrs. Clinton "a monster,” and saying there are, essentially, no depths she will not stoop to.

It looks to me at the moment that this story won’t go away. The Clinton campaign will pump the well until it’s dry, while quietly pouring water in on the side to keep it moist.

And none of this is terrible. It’s politics.

But Samantha Power should not be fired, or forced to resign, or thrown over the side.

She made a mistake. She lost, for a moment, her manners. She apparently knew what she’d done immediately because she told the reporter that what she’d just said was off the record. But for whatever reason or reasons, good or bad, the reporter printed it anyway. When it was printed, a mini-storm erupted. Power apologized. "I should not have made these comments, and I deeply regret them," she said. She damned her quotes as "negative" and "personal.”

And that should be enough. Every staffer in every campaign has just been reminded — again — that it’s dangerous to run off at the mouth. They can’t be reminded enough! Believe me, I know. I was once a campaign staffer.

Power is young, 37. This is her first national campaign. She is hardly unsophisticated — she is a Harvard professor, a former journalist, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian — but she made a bush league mistake, a gaffe. In saying this, I use the definition Michael Kinsley popularized: a gaffe, in politics, is the accidental, untimed blurting of a truth.

But, when you work in a campaign and you care about your candidate, you come to harbor dark feelings about the competition. You can call this unprofessional, but you can also call it being human.

Everyone gets a mistake. Power just made hers. She is no doubt mortified. She has embarrassed her candidate and caused him harm. I’m sure she is hitting herself on the head.

Advice for the press: Come to her aid. Your livelihood depends in part on the willingness of people in or near power to tell you what they’re really thinking. Power did just that. Far more important, a healthy democracy benefits from the regular releasing of verbal steam. Democracy benefits from candor. Voters learn from it. In this case we appeared to learn what all of us had previously guessed: the Obama and Clinton camps are full of people who really don’t like each other.

The latest question being bandied about in the Questionsphere is: Is it possible the Democrats will be able to field a strong and winning Clinton-Obama ticket, or an Obama-Clinton ticket? Is it possible both campaigns could come together? What does the Power interview suggest to you about the answer to that question?

(People have been wondering, when they think about the dream ticket, whether it matters that the Clintons are the Hatfields and the Obamas are the McCoys. Does it matter that they don’t like each other? Some people think no. I think yes. It matters a lot. -Presidents work closely with Vice Presidents. They have offices down the hall from each other. Their staffs work in the same complex and meet in the mess together. It is now modern tradition that the President and Vice President have lunch together once a week. It matters that they can operate with trust and respect. It mattered that the Clintons and the Gores really liked each other in 1992, and it mattered — it was news — that the Gores, in the late 1990’s, began to feel a detachment, a disappointment in the Clintons. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were close. George H.W. Bush liked Dan Quayle a lot. President and Vice Presidents want to get along. Do you want to work closely, intensely, with a partner you dislike?)

Advice to the Clinton campaign: Everyone thinks you’re ruthless, rough and tough. And in going after Power all day Thursday and Friday you showed how ruthless and tough you are. But you don’t really have to show it all the time. It is not endearing. It is not admirable, either. Do some jujitsu. Flip it, surprise your foes; show grace. Say you accept Power’s apology and don’t want to see a young woman lose her job. "There’s been enough job loss in America already." Shock ‘em and show some class.

To the Obama campaign: If Mrs. Clinton’s surrogates and aides succeed in keeping the focus on Power, and it becomes a daily distraction, you may have to ask her to step down. But do it only for the duration of the primary campaign. If you get the nomination, bring her back after her few months in Purgatory. Give her another chance.

Update: I just got the news that Power has resigned. Too bad. Clever on the part of the Obama campaign — they just stopped the next few days of Power debates. And, in the end, a loss to the Clinton campaign. You’re so rough and tough. Thanks. Got the message.

Advice to the JFK School at Harvard: Throw Power a lunch, gather ‘round your professor, invite all the students and debrief her. A two hour Q & A. "What I Learned in the ‘08 Campaign." She’ll have a lot to say. And now she can say it without losing her job.