Further On Down The Road: The Historic Importance Of The Powell Endorsement
In my first encounter with General Colin Powell at the Pentagon, I could not take my eyes off of the ribbons cascading down the left breast of his dress greens. In my second encounter with Powell following a press briefing that he had given as President Reagan’s national security adviser, there was the unmistakable sense that beneath his calm exterior burned a fire of great intensity that he banked with the same care that he measured his words.
It has been over 20 years since those encounters, but they and one other memorable Powell moment were on my mind on Sunday morning when this American idol became the latest and most prominent Republican to throw in his lot with Barack Obama.
As I wrote yesterday, I don’t think that Powell’s catharsis will move many voters at this late date. Nor was that his intention. But the endorsement, delivered in a soliloquy on “Meet the Press” that was stunning for its breadth and depth in these sound-bite times, is in a sense a road map of the tortuous route of dismay and disillusionment that I and many other Americans have traveled since that other memorable occasion: When Secretary of State Powell stood before the U.N. Security Council in February 2002 and, in journalist-author Bob Woodward’s words, became “the closer” for President Bush’s case for going to war with Iraq.
As someone who already was well aware of the capacity for treachery by the Bush administration, I felt a gut-wrenching turmoil as I listened to Powell’s point-by-point justification over National Public Radio for the case that Saddam Hussein was building WMD and had deceived U.N. arms inspectors, and that the day was close at hand when the dictator would face the consequences of his actions.
In the end, Powell was the closer for me, as well, and pretty much on the basis of his imprecations alone I reluctantly supported the war — for a few weeks. That is until that Bush administration treachery reared its head, as if on cue, as it became obvious that the American people, as well as Powell himself, had been intentionally misled.
While Powell still backs the war, that support is festooned with soldierly qualifiers, including the biggie — that virtually no one understood that the fall of Baghdad was not the end of the war but the beginning of an insurgency out of which grew an horrific civil war.
How is it that Powell can so enthusiastically support Obama if he never supported the war? Because Powell understands that the next president will face daunting challenges beyond the end game in Iraq.
Chief among them, he noted in his endorsement, is the economy. Then there is taking the War on Terror to where it belongs, reaching out to allies and foes, fixing a failing education system and rectifying a grossly unequal system of taxation. In short, beginning to undo the excesses and failures of the last eight years.
While Powell measured his words with typical care, there was an unmistakable poignancy to them that shouted out from under the veneer of diplomacy that was even more pronounced when I watched the rerun of “Meet the Press” on MSNBC on Sunday night.
Powell said that John McCain, was “unsure,” “did not have complete grasp,” “raised questions about his judgment,” and that his campaign was “a little too narrow,” while the Republican party as a whole, and with the Sarah Palin selection in particular, was moving too far to the right while indulging in fear mongering and demonization.
It is a testament to the righteousness of the endorsement that the push-back from the McCain-Palin campaign and Republican punditocracy has been so weak, or so revolting in the case of people for whom the statesman-general suddenly become a traitor and just another uppity Negro with his endorsement.
Has Powell come home in the sense that he has now validated the view of folks like myself who see the last eight years as an unmitigated disaster?
No.
Powell has never felt a tribal obligation and would have become a Democrat long ago if he did. He is a decades-long friend of McCain, remains generally admiring of George Bush (if not Dick Cheney) and still is a Washington establishmentarian. He just happens to be a moderate who values the very American inclusiveness that allowed he and Obama to rise about their humble beginnings. And finds the immoderate notion that being a Muslim-American is a disqualifier to be repugnant.
Still, endorsing Obama and calling him a “transformational” figure is a kind of act of courage that Powell never encountered on the battlefield or in a war room. It also is an overdue one since lives — perhaps many thousands of lives — could have been saved in Iraq if he had put aside his soldierliness and given voice to his demons the last time the White House was up for grabs.
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32 Responses to “Further On Down The Road: The Historic Importance Of The Powell Endorsement”
Shaun, if you are going to call Powell a Republican, please list one social or economic issue that would lead anyone to believe that Powell is a Republican.
Also, I find it odd that the left now loves Powell after spending the last twenty years calling him a war criminal. I guess it shows you want a cheap price forgiveness has for the left. If you Google, Colin Powell War Criminal, you get half a million hits.
Isn't the fact that he worked for the most partisan right wing republican administration not enough for you?
Don,
No. It means the Powell is a DC, inside the beltway opprotunist. Powell befriended Casper Weinberger and Frank Carlucci when he was a mid-level general. They pushed him for advantagement. If Powell would have been an idealogue, he would not have been national security advisor or Chairman, JCOS.
Unless you can point to some policy point that would be supported by most Repulblicans and opposed by most Democrats, it is safe to assume that Powell is by inclination a Democrat but used Replubican politics to advance himself.
Powell was completely and utterly loyal to a far-right administration for a long time, even to the point of damaging his own reputation. So what if he diverged on a couple social issues? Big deal.
Jspencer,
I am still waiting for an issue where Powell would disagree with the Democrats and agree with the Repbulicans.
Let me see. Abortion? No. Affirmative ACtion? No. Guns? No. Gays? No. Smaller government? No. Less immigration? No. Education? No. Energy? No.
Please cite your issue or just admit that Powell would have always been more comfortable in the Democratic party but that the Repulbicans used him as a quota black to show that they are not bigots. As look how well the Republicans did having Powell as Sec. of State. (also See Rice and Alphonse Jackson for examples of quota blacks).
SD:
You are being even more vapid than usual today.
The post is on Powell's endorsement, not his Republican bona fides. Please butt out.
shaun
for his endorsement to mean anything, then one has to considered that Powell is at least nominally a Replubicans. Many post have claimed that he is a moderate Republicans. I am waiting for someone to explain to be what makes anyone thinkg that Colin Powell in his personal politics is a Republicans. There is not one instance where I can recall that he has made a policy statement where he would agree with rank and file Repulbicans
also, why is the left, after almost twenty years of call Powell a war criminal, that now is opinion is worth something. Shaun, are you willing to say that all of those posters of dailykos or Democraticunderground who claim Powell was a war criminal were wrong and that are extremist? Or is it that Colin Powell has now made it clear that he has gone from the house slave of the Republicans to the house slave of the Demorats?
Shaun — do not hype Powell's endorsement. It's sufficient to report it; it's a big but brief shining moment for Obama that has passed us by. (Obama's ill grandmother is the big issue of the moment with the Obama campaign. That and another Biden blunder, for which he won't be held accountable — he can be a buffoon and he'll still be our VP.)
I laugh again at those such as on NPR (and given Shaun's malfunctioning for the past several weeks to months, he might also be included) who have rushed to report about the endorsement of “General” Powell rather than “Secretary of State” (in the Bush administration, and supporting the war effort) Powell. What a derisory joke.
Super D: Ignore the wacko, extreme, predictable Left and Shaun's random misuse of words (a continuation of his malfunctioning) — the end (President Obama) justifies all means, and all forms of hypocrisy and other mischiefs.
Powell has a RINO horn, if you are honest out there. Even those of us who would prefer a true conservative alternative to the Dems but who support Powell (a man who deserves our support given how good he is) know he's been a RINO (and something of an opportunist when he flirted with the Presidency before 1996).
DLS,
Powell has been an opportunist since he worked ofr Caspar Weinberger back in the mid-80's. Even his biographiers admit that Powell spent little time in the outside-the-beltway Army and spent most of his time being the best political general since World War II.
Forest, trees, forest, trees, forest, trees, forest, trees………………
SD, you're so full of crap when you claim the “left” has been calling Powell a war criminal. That's absolutely not true. Provide some proof that anyone other than some fringe blogger has done so. For anyone to claim “The Left” has taken some wide-ranging position on something, you're going to need to provide cites from numerous, influential Democrats. Pulling a cite from any random blog isn't enough to lay any such claim at the feet of “The Left” (a favorite catch-all term for lazy thinking if ever I saw one).
With apologies in advance to those who would obviously prefer I keep my nose out of this one, I have to take exception to something here. The entire premise that SD poses about “point to this policy or that one that *REPUBLICANS* support..” is not just wrong on its face, but offensive as well. I opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and still do. I happen to be pro-choice, while accepting reasonable limitations. I think trickle down Reagonomics is absolute bullcrap. I opposed many aspects of the so called “Patriot Act” for their intrusive nature regarding personal privacy. So… am I a Democrat? No. I have never been a member of that party. I was a card carrying Republican for 25 years until finally being driven out in 2005. But I was one of the many that the new “GOP base” loved to playfully deride and insult by calling us RINOs.
You remember the RINOs, right? The ones who supported crazy, wacky Republicans like the Maine Sisters and Christie Todd Whitman? Oh, how you all loved to deride and insult us. (Oh, neocons… is there nothing in American political discourse you can't immediately turn into a spittle flecked pissing contest?) So you continued to insult us until many of us finally packed our bags and left. But now SD is the designated judge as to who passes muster based on what position a given voter holds on various issues, eh? These are the bona fides we must demonstrate, apparently, to qualify as “real” Republicans.
SD, you write here frequently and eloquently about the pending demise of the GOP and how America is becoming a single party nation. If you ever find yourself wondering how and why that happened, go back and re-read what you wrote here in this thread, take a long, hard look in the mirror, and you'll have your answer.
Jazz,
As an independent (not a moderate) who leans Democratic since Bush II, I must say cheers. Well written and well said.
For those who would like to know what Republican's used to stand for and be about, go read John Rodgers at Kung Fu Monkeys I Miss Republicans post. I reread it every time I read or hear about a Limbaugh or Coulter moment and it helps me realize that we used to have two parties that cared about America.
Jazz,
The conservatives would argue that expanding entitlements, open borders, and increased government spending to keep the RINO's happy is what has killed the Republican party. Trying to keep RINO from defecting is what the Repulbicans will go out of business faster than demographics alone would have. Maybe if the RINO would have called for less spending instead of trying to outspend the DEmocrats, the U.S. might have had a conservative party in the future.
the real question is where will you go in politics after the Democrats show you the back of their hand?
Actually, the extreme Left has called Clinton and Carter war criminals as well as warmongers. That's about extreme as you can get.
* * *
As for the RINOs, they're Dems Lite and if people believe it's going to be a Dem year, why vote for Dems merely in drag when you can have the real thing? The RINOs, the Rockefeller Republicans (exemplified to this day by Bloomberg, who should be a Dem and whose current power-hungry behavior is disgraceful), the “neo-cons” in the older, more general sense (happy with Big Government in Washington as long as _they_ are in charge of it and it is aligned with _their_ goals) — the “me, too” entitlement-state Republicans and other establishmentarians happy with bloated Washington (at times including even otherwise-conservative parties like the Wall Street Journal), the post-1994 so-called “revolutionaries” that later fought term limits (like disgusting Bloomberg, the Silly Set's darling “Republican”) and have become lobbyists and lifers in DC, and who even have become Dem-like with corruption originating largely due to their “fixture” and perpetual-incumbent nature — this along with foreign problems was what led many GOP-leaners to cast Thumbs Down on the GOP in 1996 and if anything, will be more impressive in the same manner next month.
Super D, the GOP has a future, still, at the very least in the broadest sense, as the party of Opposition to “excessive excess” by the Dems as they incrementally move toward their cradle-to-grave Europe-aping vast-number-vote-buying hugely-interventionist-and-correspondingly-corrupt dream of a welfare state. Our population is aging, tending to make it overall likely more rather than less conservative with more experience and wisdom. The financial problems we'll be facing with our federal government retirement-welfare-program problems alone 20-30 years from now will cause a great deal of anguish and, yes, opposition to what we see in more backward parts of the nation already, Blue Nation arrogant fiefdom-minding government bureaucrats who reflexively believe the answer to any shortfall of government revenue is immediately and always, increased taxation. Eventually the taxpayers will push back, if nothing else, 20-30 years from now.
That is general and broad in scope, obviously, and subsumes any contemporary political phenomena such as the much-hyped-and-hated Religious Right as a locus of GOP substance or activism.
DLS,
When you consdier that less than half the children in kindergarten are white, there is no long term future for the Republicans. As the U.S. becomes a county with a diverse, one party state, voting will begin to breakdown even more on ethnic, racial, and, class lines. However, there will not be enough people interested in keeping the government small or in helping the private sector. The me-too Republicans just want to get a share of the haul from the government.
The real question is whether the U.S. can keep importing enough energetic immigrants who will do the work and pay the taxes for that more than 50% of the population can live off of government handouts.
Powell was military dude, and he was a Republican in a military sense, and moderate in other areas. He worked for Republican administrations. He sold American the War on Terror and the rest of the world on the Coalition of the Willing. He was certainly being a Republican in his area of power — the military.
Also: RINO is such a jerky term — it assumes that you know better than anyone else what a Republican is supposed to be.
And SD, why why why do you insist on bringing every single post around to how scared you are of too many brown people and not enough white people? It's highly offensive.
roro80,
when people talk about the Republicans making a comeback, they need to explain how they are going to do it with the changing demographics in the U.S. I also point out the demographics groups who vote DEmocratic everytime someone claims that Democrats are all college educated intelligent people.
In the long run, no conservative party will be viable in the U.S. because of changing demographics. So the question is whether the U.S. becomes a one party state (my conclusion) or that somehow a political party to the left of the current Democratic party will breakoff from the Democrats, be able to bring large numbers of non-whites voters, and be viable in all 50 states.
“In the long run, no conservative party will be viable in the U.S. because of changing demographics”
Or maybe people should wake up to the fact that “conservative” does NOT have to mean “white person who doesn't like minorities” (or gays or young people or women or Muslims). So on one hand you have “let the conservative movement die” and on the other you have “move the conservative movement away from racism and bigotry”, and you've clearly chose your hand.
Great response roro! It reminds me of the Bill Buckley “Madame, I have spent my life trying to separate the right from the Kooks!”
I'm out of the office this afternoon (Tuesday). I'll be back in tomorrow. I'll be able to return cell phone calls during parts of the afternoon.
Thanks,
Ronda Ropes
While simply being the Opposition to growth in government, especially in entitlements, notably those of retirement welfare programs, is not glamorous or even a source of pride, I do see the GOP as at least being that kind of opposition party on behalf of what will become truly beleaguered taxpayers eventually.
The size of Washington is in large part due to middle-class entitlements, more than the welfare programs and other appeals to “outsider” minority interest groups (of whom some “leaders” continue the perpetual-victimhood stance copied by far left activists). Just wait until we have Medicare for All, we even consider raising the “replacement ratio” of Social Security payments (that is, increase them), and our already-bloated entitlement system hits the demographic as well as financial brick wall that aging (not ethnicity or race) will eventually create.
Things are _already_ distorted beyond just limits. Just wait twenty more years.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/browse.html
roro80,
Moving conservative away from what the left perceives as racism means moving away from any idea of being conservative. If opposition to affirmative action, race based quotas, or racial set asides programs is seen as racist, then any conservative party will be seen as racist.
You can make a claim about homosexuals but the problem is that the militant homosexuals want to apply the civil rights acts to homosexuals so that they can also get the set asides, quotas, and affirmative action.
So, no, there is not hope for any conservative party. so the question then, is will the U.S. function with one political party or with two liberal parties where the argument is over which specific groups gets the most benefits and who gets stuck with the bills.
Super D, I suspect many (a quiet majority) know the difference between real racism and “racism” that is the bogus and common charge eminating from the Left toward so much it opposes.
Conservatism faces a natural disadvantage the more immature our society is, sadly; it is at something of a natural disadvantage, anyway, as it is perceived as naturally negative or pessimistic, while they doe-eyed youthful other side is seen as positive and optimistic. (Never mind that change is not the same as improvement.)
“Also: RINO is such a jerky term — it assumes that you know better than anyone else what a Republican is supposed to be.”
Roro
It seems to be used every time a Republican strays from conservative orthodoxy or endorses a Democrat. Before Reagan there were liberal, conservative and moderate Republicans. The conservatives now dominate and demean those who stray by using that term. Its the same thing they did to “liberal”- which led many liberals to change to progressive.
DLS- For a time liberal was a dirty word, now conservative will have that connotation.
Perhaps minorities would be more comfortable with those opposed to “affirmative action, race based quotas, or racial set asides programs”, and would be much less likely to call it out as racism, if those same conservatives weren't the same people who talk about how the brown people are outbreeding the white people, if they weren't the same people pulling even more money out of low-performing schools (read: schools in areas with lots of minorities), weren't the same people calling Harvard-graduated African Americans “uppity”, weren't the same people screaming about how the Mexicans are ruining our economy, the same people who complain when they see a Mexican flag in a window, etc, etc, ad nauseum. In other words, exactly what I said earlier: stop conservatives from actually promoting actual racist policies, and minorities will no longer focus on the “racist” policies. Stop actually being racist, and you will no longer be accused of it. It's really that easy.
“You can make a claim about homosexuals but the problem is that the militant homosexuals want to apply the civil rights acts to homosexuals so that they can also get the set asides, quotas, and affirmative action.”
This is so bull; just patently untrue. I have never ever in all my years of being immersed in the “gay agenda” heard someone asking for a quota of gays at work, in college, etc, etc. What gay people want is not to be fired from a job they already have because they are gay. They want the benefits and responsibilities of marriage like straight people get. They want not to be beat up because of who they choose to sleep with. The younger ones want not to be kicked out of their home at age 16 when they come out, not to be beat up at school because they are different. “Militant homosexuals”? What the hell is that? “Goddamn it we WILL have Barbara Streisand! There will be gowns and makeup!”
roro80
How would homosexuals prove discrimination but in exactly the same way that blacks do it today. Require emloyers to report employment data based upon whose collection is required by the government. Are you really going to argue that militant homosexuals really do not want the government to add sexual preference on the form next to gender and race?
SD — Yes, I will argue that, because it's ridiculous. Right now, it's actually legal in most states to fire/not hire an employee because of their sexual orientation or gender presentation. At this point, it's not a matter of “proving” anything, because it's not even illegal discrimination in many places. And, again — “militant homosexuals”, what is that? Like gay people in the military? I guess I do know a few of those. Also: what form are you talking about? I'd love to see you try to find some of these “militant homosexuals” and provide a link for any of this stuff you think is part of what the gays want.
Eh, not sure how we got here on a thread about Colin Powell, but hey, it pisses me off when someone talks about minorities and gay people like they're anything but people.