Monster.gov

One of America's leading journalists, academics, human rights activists, and jump shooters has been laid low -- by, what else, a word, spoken out of turn in front of another journalist. In an unguarded moment during an interview with The Scotsman newspaper, Samantha Power -- Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School and Barack Obama's unpaid foreign policy guru -- made the mistake of saying what she really felt about the behavior of Hillary Clinton and her campaign in last Tuesday's primaries. She dutifully fell on her sword -- resigning and apologizing to Mrs. Clinton -- but not before a gaggle of newspaper columnists took her and by proxy Barack Obama to task for their political naivate.

It may seem ironic that a writer who's probed the history of America's policy towards genocide and reported from some of the world's most fearsome and treacherous war zones, from Serbia to Darfur, should be chided for her lack of practical savvy. But I understand what Power's critics mean. Immersion in human misery and a passion for change can get the better of anyone. As can the Clinton campaign, an organization that combines opportunism, dirty tricks, espionage, historical revisionism, and shrill self-righteousness in a way that any third world dictator would envy.

Too bad she'll never be that naive again.

Smug alert

After much soul searching and many test drives I bought a new Prius last week. The soul searching had less to do with environmental impact or hybrid technology than a private fear of change, along with some misgivings about the Prius's split rear window. But after a week of commutes I'm a fully converted hybridoid, and have to resist the temptation to honk at fellow Prius owners. Toyota is smart enough to realize that reduced emissions go better with a comfortable, quiet and well-designed interior, along with plenty of high tech bells and whistles. The Bluetooth is particularly appealing for a long daily commute down the shore from Marblehead to Cambridge, and back again, as is the mp3 player support (though I've only figured out the first so far). And somehow the feeling that I'm reducing my consumption of fossil fuel flatters my sense of connection with other environmental causes, whether saving endangered species (should I get a manatee sticker?) or eating local produce (should I join an urban pickup cooperative?). In the quiet of the electrified Prius interior I can hear the happy hum of my own virtue.