I just wanted to say something brief tonight about today’s endorsement by Colin Powell:
I’m in one of those odd states of mind that really transcends a sense of betrayal as a result of what he gave as his rationale today.
A few days ago I was upset with John McCain over Joe the Plumber — not because Joe was wrong to ask the question, but because I feared McCain would make a doormat out of him: use him during the debate and then forget he ever existed, to face the lunatics and lose his livelihood alone. To his immense credit, McCain didn’t do that. He realized right away what kind of a blowback Joe had inspired and he stood up for the guy. He came through for the little guy who stuck up for him.
Colin Powell has done something that leaves me much more than upset, though: he’s turned his back on everyone in this party for reasons that sound like talking points he cribbed from Josh Marshall. He chose the most public forum possible in which to do it, and then he added one of the biggest pieces of flimflammery I’ve ever heard to the top.
Powell isn’t a stupid man by any stretch of the imagination. I have no doubt that his IQ is in the upper reaches of the highest standard deviation among people on this Earth. He’s more than intelligent enough to read between the lines in the media and I’m sure he knows more than most people about what gets into the media and where it begins. He should know very well how the media works against Republicans and Conservatives in this country on every level. Evidently he doesn’t think that’s his fight any longer. He’d rather switch. His prerogative, of course, but I’ll never understand why, if his big gripe about McCain was statements on the economy, he could endorse Barack Obama.
It must have something to do with having a supple intelligence (as the Washington Post puts it) to be able to ignore the fact that Obama’s economic policies in combination with an all-Democrat Congress will mean the most wrenching lurch to the Left that this country has seen in the past 100 years. I hesistate to ask whether or not that’s where Colin’s sympathies have always resided, because if they have, he should have resigned from his posts a long time ago. Maybe we let him stay in his job too long. I could tolerate this kind of stuff from Scott McClellan, who after all was only after his book deal and didn’t have much of a fall back, and who in any case I always had misgivings about, but Colin Powell?
I wish Redstate’s posting rules permitted me to express the single, succinct term that I have to describe him right now, but I won’t do it. I won’t even obfuscate it. I will tell you that it doesn’t begin with “n.” Think one letter ahead.
Powell once wore a patch on his dress greens
Justin_Case Sunday, October 19th at 10:18PM EDT (link)that was a depiction of the Southern Cross constellation on a blue background. This was the unit patch of the Americal Division. The patch was also worn by the infamous William Calley. Norman Schwarzkoph was a member of the Americal that served in Vietnam. So was I.
It was a source of pride for me to be even slightly associated with men such as Powell and Schwarzkoph because of our common service in Americal. I’ve often wondered whether our paths may have crossed.
Several years ago I stuck up for Powell in a discussion group when his name was besmirched by those who attempted to link him with the My Lai cover-up.
How he can cast his lot against a fellow Vietnam veteran, in John McCain, while bestowing on Obama the credibility to be Commander-In-Chief, is beyond my capability to understand-unless Powell is seeking another job working for another President.
Haven’t you learned, General Powell? Do you recall Joe Biden’s vote for the Church Amendment that ended funding for the South Vietnamese that set the stage for the final chapter in our abandonment of the South Vietnamese? Will you give your blessing to a similar betrayal of Iraq and Afghanistan?
This news today sickens me. That’s all I can say.
Colin Powell was only nominally a Republican
JSobieski Sunday, October 19th at 10:22PM EDT (link)Bush chose him as SofS as part of the reaching across the isle/bipartisonship thing.
Now W and the rest of us have to live with the consequences.
From what I saw of Powell’s tv appearance today, I think he was pretty measured.
I think your reaction to both Joe the Plumber and Colin Powell are overreactions. In the political world, there are a lot of people who care more about their reputations than about particular policy outcomes.
Powell doesn’t see democrat control of government as a big threat (he is after all endorsing Obama), so of course given that context, he is going to work to preserve his reputation.
Powell has an outlook that is not so different from McCain (although McCain is more of a partison than Powell).
There is not an ideological bone in Powell’s body. Obama is a soothing personality with an appearantly very presidential temperment.
For someone like Powell, that’s what he is focused on.