Slate gives their take on the sudden resignation of Samantha Power from Obama’s campaign.

Passage:

“The resignation matters symbolically, but that’s about it. Power has called herself an “informal adviser” to Obama, and she wasn’t exactly part of the regular campaign entourage. (She did travel with the campaign in Iowa and South Carolina.) Her stepping down doesn’t mean she and Obama can’t talk. It just means they can’t appear together in public.”

Perhaps in the grander scheme of things her status as an “informal adviser” will not shed her ability to advise Obama on foreign policy matters, but her presence means so much more than that. As one the best known proponents on human rights, her appearances with Obama and on behalf of Obama can serve as a powerful message to those abroad. In debates where we talk more about Rezko than Darfur, about withdrawing from Iraq versus the massive refugee crisis in Iraq, elections in Russia versus the lack thereof in Burma, etc. etc. etc. Power could have been a comforting presence to people like me and those in plight around the world that these issues are still being discussed, even if only in the background. After all, this is the person that has raised the issue of the human rights vacuum amongst major powers. She won’t naively dismiss the notion of large scale ethnic conflict once we leave Iraq and has a plan to prevent as much of this from happening as possible. She talks frequently about Darfur, and has seen the effects of ethnic cleansing first hand in Yugoslavia.

But in the first place, she should not have to resign, she’s apologized profusely:

“I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor, and purpose of the Obama campaign.”

The roles of Bob Kerrey, Robert Johnson, and others that have criticized Obama in far worse ways have not resulted in the formal cessation of contact between them and the Clinton campaign, and Hillary’s call for a resignation should be regarded only as hypocritical.

In a year where U.S. funding for child and maternal health programs around the world are cut by nearly 18 percent, where there are no appropriations for helicopters to enforce a no fly zone in Darfur, and where the plight of the Burmese and Kenyans were limited to a single news cycle, Samantha Power was an albeit small but comforting face in the world we live in.