Well, we knew that Barack Obama's campaign was making a new push to go on the offensive against Hillary Clinton, but perhaps it didn't intend to go as far as one senior foreign policy advisor did in a recent interview.

Speaking to the Scotsman, Obama advisor Samantha Power said of Clinton, "She is a monster, too -- that is off the record -- she is stooping to anything." (By usual journalistic rules, you can't say something and then take it off the record, you have to go off the record first.) Power also said of Clinton, "You just look at her and think, 'Ergh'. But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive."

The Obama campaign issued an apology quickly. In a statement, Power apologized to Clinton and Obama and said her words "do not reflect my feelings about Sen. Clinton, whose leadership and public service I have long admired. I should not have made these comments, and I deeply regret them. It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms." Obama spokesman Bill Burton said separately, "Sen. Obama decries such characterizations, which have no place in this campaign."

In a conference call with reporters Friday morning, congressional supporters of Clinton called for Power to be fired from the campaign.