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LONG ROAD TO HELL AMERICA IN IRAQ PROFESSIONAL

On the political side, The Education of an Idealist narrates PowerвЂ™s ascent from atrocity journalist to steward of American exceptionalism, instructing followers not in the potential costs of difficult choices but in how to avoid even computing them.

LONG ROAD TO HELL AMERICA IN IRAQ PROFESSIONAL

In the narrative arc of the book, PowerвЂ™s career-interrupting indiscretion provides a moment of adversity from which a series of professional triumphs-and a kind of redemption through sin (if it was one)-are still possible. Most unbelievably, Power reports that she never meant to call Hillary Clinton a monster during ObamaвЂ™s first campaign for president, and in fact doesnвЂ™t remember doing so. In fact, The Education of an Idealist seems less a call for personal authenticity than a reminder of the need to manage a career down to the fine details and with greater concern for indulging friends and massaging enemies than for saying what you think. It is in the genre that brings the reader up close to life with all of its messiness, but often it feels more artificial than honest. PowerвЂ™s book has been a bestseller for months, but some will find the memoir falsely perВsonal. It succeeds in doing so, however, only because it stuВdiously avoids serious discussion of how the wrong idealism in power can lead to the worst kind of unintended consequences. Only copping to forgivable or unintentional mistakes, it pushes back against the possibility of ethical comВpromise in crossing the Rubicon from government critic to government service. The overall thrust of PowerвЂ™s argument is to deny the need for any accounting of how good intentions can drive perverse results in the use of state power abroad. Yet at its core, The Education of an Idealist is a deft ethical dodge. These vignettes, along with anecdotes about PowerвЂ™s always more than transactional relationship to her familyвЂ™s cook and nanny and her affection for various sports teams, effectively humanize her throughout the book. Indeed, it accurately reminds readers of continuing exclusions in the male foreign policy elite, even while affirming the femiВnist possibility of having it all-including the marital bliss and motherhood of two portrayed in recurring scenes. And PowerвЂ™s story vindicates the nobility of public service, especially for women. Yet Power is not above acknowledging error and tragedy, notably when her convoy in Cameroon runs over a small boy and kills him. PowerвЂ™s memoir narrates her role in some policies that genuinely вЂњmade the world a better place,вЂќ as one of the signature phrases of our times demands and the target audience for the book expects. It purports to explore how far ethical idealists can take the reins of state power for the sake of good, and it concludes that they can do so with no compromises. It narrates an engrossing life story with a confessional and at times intimate rhetoric. For what it tries to achieve, it is close to pitch-perfect. PowerвЂ™s book has been lauded widely in the mainstream press and understandably so. But her recently released memoir, The Education of an Idealist, reveals that she never learned her bossвЂ™s first lesson. During his second, she became AmericaвЂ™s ambassador to the United Nations. Power went on to serve as a National Security Council staffer for multilateral affairs and human rights during ObamaвЂ™s first term.

But, he added, it вЂњseemed like malpractice to judge oneвЂ™s prospects by oneвЂ™s intentions, rather than making a strenВuous effort to anticipate and weigh potential consequences.вЂќ At her first dinner with future president Barack Obama, a forty-five-minute meet and greet that turned into a four-hour mindВmeld, the then senator from Illinois told Samantha Power he admired her first book, вЂњA Problem from HellвЂќ, an already classic study of genocide prevention.

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