Kirsten Powers | |
|---|---|
| Born | Kirsten Anne Powers (1967-12-14)December 14, 1967 (age 57) |
| Alma mater | University of Maryland |
| Occupation | Columnist and political analyst |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Robert Draper |
Kirsten Anne Powers[1] (born December 14, 1967) is an American author, liberal columnist and political analyst.[2] She has been a columnist forUSA Today and a political analyst atCNN andFox News.The Washington Post called her "bright-eyed, sharp-tongued, [and] gamely combative."[3][4]
Prior to joining CNN in 2016,[5] Powers worked atFox News as a political analyst and contributor,[6] where she appeared regularly across the channel as a liberal journalist.[7] Powers was previously a columnist for theNew York Post, and laterThe Daily Beast, which she left to joinUSA Today.
Powers began her career as a staff assistant with theClinton-Gore presidential transition team in 1992, followed by an appointment as Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Public Affairs in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1998. She subsequently worked in various roles, including press secretary, communications consultant and party consultant.[8]
Powers' parents were archaeologists, withIrish-American heritage.[8][9][10][11] She credits her interest in politics and debate with being "expected to state and defend my positions on the issues of the day every night at dinner".[9]
She graduated fromMonroe Catholic High School inFairbanks, Alaska, in 1986[1] and theUniversity of Maryland and attendedGeorgetown University Law Center for a year and a half.
Powers served in theClinton administration as the deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for public affairs.
She left to become the vice president for international communications atAmerica Online.[6] After AOL's merger withTime Warner, she became a vice president at theAOL-Time Warner Foundation.
Powers has worked in New York State Democratic politics for many years. She was a consultant of theNew York State Democratic Committee, the press secretary for theAndrew Cuomo for Governor campaign, and communications director on the mayoral campaign ofC. Virginia Fields. She also worked on the "Vote No on 3" campaign, which overwhelmingly defeated New York City MayorMichael Bloomberg's ballot initiative to eliminateparty primaries. Powers also was press secretary for Donnie Fowler's unsuccessful bid to beDemocratic National Committee (DNC) chair. She has consulted for a variety ofnon-profit organizations, includingHuman Rights First and theNational Council for Research on Women (NCRW).[6]
In 2015, she authoredThe Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech, which was published byRegnery Press.
In July 2017, Powers criticized CNN's decision tonot identify a controversial Reddit user, asking in aUSA Today article: "What about the people he routinely dehumanizes and degrades online?"[12] But, she wrote, she ultimately supported CNN's decision to not identify the user because they determined his safety might have been jeopardized. Powers also wrote on Twitter that "people do not have a 'right' to stay anonymous so they can spew their racist, misogynist, homophobic garbage".[13]
In January 2019 Powers was criticized and, in her own words, "harassed" onTwitter, after she blamedCovington Catholic High School students for "disrespecting an Indigenous elder" during a highly publicizedconfrontation that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, 2019.[14] The following month she wrote a column forUSA Today in which she said: "I recently took a hiatus from social media to reflect on what role I might be playing in our increasingly toxic public square. I was not proud of what I found."[15]
In July 2023, she announced that she was leaving her position as a political analyst with CNN after seven years with the network.[5]
Powers supportsuniversal health care.[16] Thus, she initially supported PresidentBarack Obama's health care reform, but later became critical of its implementation. She later opined: "A lot of people who have really been screwed over by the law [and] are left without insurance or with extremely expensive insurance", and agreed with aRon Fournier headline inNational Journal, "Why I'm getting tired of defending Obamacare."[17]
In 2009, Powers urged the Obama administration to repeal "Don't ask, don't tell" as "refusing the service of people like Lt.Daniel Choi[...]an Arabic linguist — a specialty in enormously short supply — who deployed to Iraq and was willing to deploy again" harmed national security.[18] A year earlier, she had accused the Republican Party of using homophobia for political gain.[19]
Powers opposed theFairness Doctrine,[20] and aconstitutional amendment to banflag burning.[21] She also supports comprehensiveimmigration reform and providing a path to citizenship forillegal aliens, and favorsgun control.[22] She also supports closingGuantanamo Bay, and transferring its prisoners to federal prisons.[23]
In 2011, Powers criticized Americans' lack of concern about theMuslim Brotherhood rising to power in Egypt as "naivete". Her concern partly derived from her then-husbandMarty Makary being ofCoptic origin.[24][25]
Powers described her ideal foreign policy as one of limited engagement, in which the U.S. refrained from intervening in tenuous situations it may not be able to control, or even understand. She even went on to state that she is not anisolationist.[26] Powers was critical ofObama's foreign policy, going so far as to say toBill O'Reilly: "Yeah, he should have given it [the Nobel Peace prize] back a long time ago, actually. But, you know, for the drone war, for the escalating the war in Afghanistan, having all these people die unnecessarily, plenty of civilians have been killed by his drone war, including children."[27] In a separate interview she further stated, "I've been so disappointed with Obama on his foreign policy, and it's compounded with the way the national Democrats have enabled it, especially after the way they behaved about Bush. It's more like institutional Democrats, who have rallied around assassinating an American citizen,Anwar al-Awlaki, the drone war, escalating the war in Afghanistan, which is a complete disaster, the civil liberties — things that if Bush were doing them, everybody would be hysterical. To me it's shown that they're not that serious about human rights and issues they've been aligned with."[26]
Powers has written opinion pieces against electivelate-term abortions.[28][29] However, in May 2019, she expressed regret for writing those pieces. She clarified that "[d]octors, not the government, should be helping women decide what to do in these situations", such as pregnancies that endanger the woman's life. She added that she "care[s] about all lives, and that includes the lives of women contemplating abortion".[30]
In February 2019, Powers publicly apologized for having been "too judgmental and condemning" in her statements on social media and in the press. She stated that, when criticizing others for poor behavior, she had not properly acknowledged "the humanity of everyone involved". She stated, "People should not be treated as disposable and banished in perpetuity with no path to restoration with society." She also apologized for the tone of her 2015 bookThe Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech, writing that it was "too dismissive of real concerns by traumatized people and groups who feel marginalized and ignored".[31]
Powers was raised as anEpiscopalian but spent much of her early adult life as anatheist. In her mid-30s, she became anevangelical Christian. The process of conversion began when she dated a Christian man, who introduced her to theRedeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and the teachings of its pastor,Tim Keller, and culminated in an experience on a trip toTaiwan in 2006, where she later wrote she "woke up in what felt like a strange cross between a dream and reality.Jesus came to me and said, 'Here I am.'"[10]
Powers has called her conversion "a bit of a mind bender" due to her political beliefs and former atheism, and prefers the term "orthodox Christian" over "evangelical" to describe herself, given the cultural baggage around the latter term.[32] She has said that the biggest impact her new-found faith had on her political beliefs was that she came to "view everyone as God's child, and that means everyone deserves grace and respect".[9][22]
On October 10, 2015, Powers was received into theCatholic Church.[33][34]
On November 16, 2016, Powers announced her engagement to fellow journalistRobert Draper.[35][36] They have since purchased land near Lecce,[37] Italy and relocated to southern Italy.[38]
...collective sigh of relief of flag burners across the country…all ten of them.
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