The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

I occasionally sat behind Obama at Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings in a row of seats allocated for Senate aides so they could answer their members’ questions. As the senators engaged witnesses, they seemed less interested in changing minds than in scoring points with the media, special interest groups (who I was shocked to learn actually wrote many of the senators’ questions), and, on a good day, their constituents back home. “Here we go again,” Obama told me as we entered one hearing in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was testifying. “We will faithfully pretend to be asking questions, but we will instead give statements. She will faithfully pretend to answer our questions, but will instead answer questions we didn’t ask so as to deliver talking points we’ve all heard before. And the hearing will end, and we will walk out of here, calling it ‘democratic accountability.’ ”