Colin Powell endorses Obama
Pundit's heads explode. Yes, really. All of them.
McCain pretends it doesn't matter. Cue for wingnut meltdown in 5..4..3....
Bonus link: Best transcript -- always.
PS: For the record Mr. Steyn, I neither like nor trust Colin Powell after his complicity in taking our country into the unnecessary and throughly destructive occupation of Iraq. But I can't deny I'm enjoying watching the effect it has on people like you who cheerleaded him and forced us to live your neo-con wet dreams, as your failures now become a very public and embarassing nightmare.
[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]
McCain pretends it doesn't matter. Cue for wingnut meltdown in 5..4..3....
Bonus link: Best transcript -- always.
PS: For the record Mr. Steyn, I neither like nor trust Colin Powell after his complicity in taking our country into the unnecessary and throughly destructive occupation of Iraq. But I can't deny I'm enjoying watching the effect it has on people like you who cheerleaded him and forced us to live your neo-con wet dreams, as your failures now become a very public and embarassing nightmare.
[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]
Labels: Election 08, McCain, Obama
posted by Libby Spencer at 2:31 PM
10 Comments:
Thanks Impolitic!
I gave you a H/T over at Oh Noes! earlier this week for the picutre of John McCain.
Thanks back CoT. I hope you noticed you're on the blogroll here now. I'm giving the Atriots top billing.
About former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, Skylanda, one of Echidne’s more cogent co-bloggers, sums it up this way :
I'm trying to figure out if I'm reaching for the word "hypocrisy" or the word "redemption" when I feel around for the right way to describe one of the main players who enabled Bush's [Middle East policy] … I've always liked Colin Powell despite it all. I'll go with redemption.
I too go with “redemption” but not without reservations. There is a difference in making the case for war based on “what-was-handed-to-me” versus the kind of critical analysis that only a man with Powell’s experience and knowledge could bring to bear during cabinet meetings. On Meet the Press this morning, Tom Brokaw quoted James Baker [from Bob Woodward’s account of the Iraq Study Commission in The War Within], who said of Colin Powell: “He is the one guy who could have prevented this.”
That is why I do not fully exonerate Powell for his role in marketing the Iraq war to the world.
However Colin rationalizes his case of Irritable Powell Syndrome, Bush and Cheney expressed no regrets or apologies over the Iraq war (and still none to this day)! Powell knows that history will not be kind, and perhaps he is trying to revise how history will treat him. Why should he be any different from other Bush/Cheney alumni who have tried to exonerate themselves.
As I said at DetNews, I don't forgive him exactly but I do accept and appreciate his endorsement as a sort of penance and a tacit acknowledgement that he regrets his role in getting us into Iraq.
I think that it is presumptuous for anyone to explain Powell's rationale for endorsing Barack Obama simply as either a matter of race, or of settling a political score with the Bush administration.
Taking great care to stress his admiration for McCain, Powell trained the focus of his criticism of McCain's candidacy chiefly on the divisive tactics employed by his campaign.
As Powell stated yesterday, if he chose to endorse Obama solely because of race, then he had no reason to wait for as long as he did before announcing his decision.
Furthermore, I trust Powell when he said that he initially believed Iraq was a threat.
That does not mean he advocated for going to war with the same zeal as Cheney and Rumsfeld.
By all accounts, Powell strongly favored diplomacy as a means to address the "perceived" dangers that Iraq posed.
Colin Powell has a long and distinguished career of public service. As grave an error as it proved to be, he should neither be branded as deceitful nor disloyal towards the American people for lending his support to President Bush as Secretary of State.
Point well taken Brandon. Maybe Powell really believed Iraq was a threat. Bush could have snowed him along with most of the rest of America I suppose, but surely he knew it was a lie a long time ago and it doesn't strike me as all that brave to have waited so long to speak out. It still feels a lot like CYA to me.
As I say, I appreciate he did it and it will help some now but he could have done much more good by coming out sooner. Say in 04.
I don't think Powell would have ever spoken out against the administration while he sat on Bush's cabinet.
That's not to say that he's been an outspoken critic since his resignation, either.
I think the matter was a complicated one for Powell.
I believe that his mindset as a soldier who professes an unwavering loyalty to the Commander in Chief outweighed his better judgment as a pragmatic diplomat.
For the sake of argument, I would like to add that Powell is certainly no Robin Cook.
I think we can both agree on that.
Well, there is the soldier's loyalty thing to consider. And I don't judge him. Who can say what anyone of would do under the same circumstances. I just don't admire him for how he handled it.
But we can certainly agree he's no Robin Cook. :)
ET DONA QUEERENTES
In extended observation of the ways and works of man
From the Four-mile radius roughly to the Plains of Pakistan,
I have drunk with mixed assemblies seen the racial ruction rise
And the men of half Creation damning half Creation´s eyes.
I have seen the worst of Whites berate the aptitude of Blacks,
Obama is a nincompoop or ape so on they wax,
Such eloquence as only White Trash competence can muster,
As idiots declaim in single syllables unjuster--
Than even such a joke about the raping a white gal
(How do you stop a gang of Blacks? Throw them a basketball!)
And on and on the slanders pile, vituperative their hate
These cognoscenti than Obama less articulate!
It is a bit too late to blame your own ineptitude
Upon the Blacks--Obama, neither crass nor coarse nor crude
Is not so much an orator as knows to parse a sentence
Grammatically with logic offering no glib repentance.
Of all the meanest, dumbest numbskulls in the world at large
Would seem Americans the worst so cravenly who charge
To slander and invade while boasting theirs the only right--
But would God bless my country less if people grew polite?
America, America, O gaze into the mirror:
Has self-deception led to estimation growing clearer?
Don´t pin pejoratives upon the Black. Obama can
(If God´s with him) out-think, out-wrestle all y´all to a man.
.
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