Samantha Power is Irish (Dublin born) and moved to the US I'm not quite sure when.  She did an interview on Irish radio a few weeks ago and was very impressive.  If nothing else, she will understand European sensibilities a lot better than your average neo-con - although I suppose that's not saying much.  She has an outstanding humanitarian track record and I am amazed she was hired by a (now) mainstream Presidential candidate.

Having said all that, she is now playing politics, not doing foreign policy analysis.  The name of the game for the Dems is not to be blindsided by McCain on national security, Israel, terrorism and foreigner phobia in general, and that includes the Europeans.

The US polity seems to be going through one of those phases where it realises everything is going wrong, and somebody has to take the blame.   And seeing it cannot be the shining city on the hill, it has to be more or less everybody else who doesn't do precisely what America wants.  Ergo Democrats who point the finger of Blame at Bush are less than true patriots- and McCain id trying to have it both ways - distancing himself from Bush on some issues - but being an "unapologetic patriot" = US Imperialst, all at the same time.

McCain's only real attraction is that he is not Bush, was a true war hero/patriot, and harks back to a simpler time when you knew who your enemies were because they conveniently wore black hats or called themselves communists/socialists/or didn't implement US policies like any good vassal state is supposed to do.

From an electoral strategy point of view it's a no brainer that you don't take McCain on on those terms.  If you can neutralise (=show little difference) on those terms, you expose his age, his lack of executive experience, his lack of economic expertise, and that fact that he is after all a Republican, and as far as domestic policy is concerned, it's all their fault.

What all of this says about what Obama/Power would actual DO if/when elected is a moot point.  It may bear very little resemblance to the lines on which the campaign is now being fought - which is essentially about the past, and not the future.  At the moment has the advantage of having very little track record on any of this - all he has to do is talk about hope and change, and Americans fill in the blanks with their own fantasies of what should be done.  He is signaling a rupture from the past without engaging too much with the realities of the future because that will only scare the horses.

If he is half as clever as I think he is, he simply won't go there, (now) because its not a pretty picture, and nobody ever got elected preaching doom and gloom.  Perhaps Samantha Power will be shafted into some minor position if he is elected, but the very fact that she got the job with him on her prior humanitarian record is a good sign.  The question is whether she and Obama will be strong enough to withstand the military/industrial onslaught if they do get elected, because that battle will make the current electoral skirmish look like a garden tea party.

"It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."