Is Colin Powell a Republican? You bet your donkey he is.

I won't even bother reading MC drivel. In the 60's and 70's Dems had their Fulbright's and Nunn's. The Republican's had their LIBERAL wing and moderate governors like Romney and Bill Milliken. Well, today the Democrats welcomed Blue Dogs, the sons of the Yellow Dogs; where is the love for todays Milliken or John Chaffee?

The Republican party as a whole, meaning the rank-and-file, DO have an open acceptance of a wide range of views, and indeed are people of a wide range of views, many far outside what is considered the CW for what the party stands for.

However, as is often the case, those with a zealot's sense of purpose, and the access that comes from providing good sound bites, tend to drown out the more moderate voices.

It is equally true for the Democrats.

Powell is welcome to vote republican whenever he likes. What conservatives object to is his being portrayed as a leadership voice, which he most certainly is not.

Leaders lead and followers follow. Powell was a 4 star military politician who lacked the core principles to form a decisive position on the issues of the day. His vacillation on matters of national policy shows the weak willed “which way is the wind blowing today?” panzieness that conservatives find most disgusting in liberals.

People such as Powell and his cohorts Wilkerson and Armitage demonstrate the unenviable trait of leaning towards whatever side is currently winning. Devoid of personal honor or loyalty, they are bodies for hire looking to be paid in the coin of the realm in Washington, fame and access. Political whores find it easy to rationalize whatever view is popular at the moment to fit their centrist outlook.

Why would anyone want a party filled with people like this?

Agree, AR. None of this "debate" is engaging regular folks, whether "moderate Republicans" or truly swing. It is solely a media creation and then reverberated in the political blogs.......but not in the grocery stores.

Now that Powell is the latest media frenzy, I'm reminded how much he and Obama are similar. Both articulate (I'm reminded of Joe Biden's comment...lol!) and go along to get along types. It has its advantages and disadvantages.

Austin Roth and JWest nicely represent, albeit unintentionally, two of the tumors in the cancerous Republican Party body. (Corpse?)

AR consistently attacks leftie liberals like myself when I deign to dime the GOP, but with a post like this comes out from his cave long enough to claim that Republicans are really inclusive people even if they don't act like it and he is actually one of the moderates, so we shouldn't be put off by his fright wig and right-wing crossing dressing.

JW is more candid: Anyone who doesn't agree with his extremist views, the very ones that have marginalized his beloved party to raisin-like size, are not welcome in his cave. This includes Colin Powell, and for good measure JW goes Limbaugh by calling this great American and African-American a "political whore."

Good word, lads. I'm sure you'll keep it up if your drool cups don't overflow on your Dockers.

The Republican party as a whole, meaning the rank-and-file, DO have an open acceptance of a wide range of views, and indeed are people of a wide range of views, many far outside what is considered the CW for what the party stands for.

AR Where is the voting record to back this up?

from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st...

Republican turned Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter cited evidence Tuesday to bolster his case that his old party has turned too conservative.

He said he had to avoid the fate of some other moderate GOP lawmakers in recent years: defeat or a fatal wound delivered by a conservative challenger in a party primary. His casualty list included former House members Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, Joe Schwarz of Michigan and Heather Wilson of New Mexico and former Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

The Dems elected Heath Shuler and John Tester, where is the Republican versions of these two? The rank and file Republicans are just as 'wingnutty' as the jeadership.

jwest: What conservatives object to is his being portrayed as a leadership voice, which he most certainly is not.

That begs the obvious question... if Powell is not "a leadership voice", despite some fairly obvious credentials, who do you think is?

That begs the obvious question... if Powell is not "a leadership voice", despite some fairly obvious credentials, who do you think is?

I can't speak for jwest, but it seems like the answer is Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. Two draft dodgers who like to talk tough, but when the rubber hits the road, one pops pills and the other cowers in his bunker (and would throw out the constitution, the rule of law, his mother, and anything and everything else to keep him safe from the big scary terrorists).

The partisan claws are sharp today. Thought I teleported to Wings-R-Us Blog as I was reading.

Shaun -

You mistaken seeing my fighting back against your flaming polemics, such as trying to lay blame at the feet of Bush for the actions of a disturbed serviceman, as my defending any criticism of the Republicans.

Hell, I was going to compliment you on that article overall, as a very powerful piece of writing, until YOU felt the need to unnecessarily drag Bush into it and try to lame the blame at his feet. Are you claiming that only under Bush have soldiers committed crimes? Or only under Republican Presidents? Utter rubbish, and indicitive of your lack of perspective due to BDS, or more accurately RDS.

And I am indeed a Republican moderate, in my politics and my voting. I only come across so Right-wing because SOMEONE has to stand up to the DU-level smears, lies and distortions of posters like you and Kathy.

You know I have been around a long time on this board, and I do not deny that I am to the right of most of the posters and commentators, but only become so incensed because you and others tend to be zo unatic-fringe leftist at times, like GD's attack on the military that I got so upset at the other day.

BTW - despite the true, deep anger I still feel at him for those smears at our servicemen and servicewoman, and by association my daughter, I admit I stepped over the line in my response to him, and apologize to him and the board in general for expressing that which I should have just kept to myself.

But I have stood up before and pointed out that I am definitely on the left side of the Republican Party.

I believe in abortion rights for women (although not in Roe v. Wade, but that is a separate issue); I am firmly opposed to any and all attempts to add 'creationism' to education; I am not opposed to gay marriage, as long as it is implemented via legislative or voter actions; while I support the email/voice monitoring programs for anti-terrorism, in general I believe the Fourth Amendment has been completely trampled on by drug and alcohol test rulings, asset forfeiture laws, no-knock raids, and the attempts to weaken Miranda and the associated rulings; I have consistently stated my opposition to the lack of habeas corpus for US citizens and US nationals (but not non-uniformed enemy combatants); I have also been clear that while I believe in the purpose of the 'enhanced interrogation' memos, that they did define the line between lawful and unlawful techniques, and as such anyone shown to have exceeded those limits should be prosecuted; and many other examples of 'unorthodoxy'. I am even an atheist, which according to some people's thinking, should make it impossible for the Republican party to accept me. Bu they dio.

I am not claiming to be right-leaning Democrat in disguise, but I am claiming that I am not the the extreme right-winger I find myself being here too often in reaction to what are, IMO, over-the-top attacks from the other direction.

Rico -

You hit the nail on the head. There are none. McCain is not a moderate - he is a maverick, which is different.

Powell could have been the next generation of centralist leader, but he choose not to enter the fray at one point, and then support the Democratic candidate after it was fairly clear he ws going to win. Not really 'leadership'.

Who else is out there? Hopefully one will emerge soon, but I think anyone who is tempted to is smart enough to sit back, and not provide a running start to the fringe side of the Republican party, which would indeed try to derail them.

Shaun,

Political whores are generic. You see people by the color of their skin; I see them by the content of their character.

Ricorun,

Right now, Rush, Newt and Cheney are the people speaking for the core of the conservatives.

More on where the Republican Party is going:

When two conservatives produce a child, the result is Liz Cheney.

When you breed a moderate, you end up with Megan McCain.

AustinRoth,

If you are extremely good looking and successful, we may have been twins separated at birth.

My positions are exactly the same as yours.

AR:

To say that Bush is not complicitous in the disaster that the Iraq war was from the outset, to intimate that willfully ignoring pleas from his generals for more troops was not a major factor in the situation that bred such hostility and such unacceptably high casualty rates in Mahmoudiyah, that by necessity lowered the bar on who was an acceptable recruit by the time that Master Green arrived in country, is being willfully ignorant.

Bush did not rape Abeer, AR, but a direct line can be pretty much drawn from the Oval Office, with a slight detour to DefSec Rumsfeld's, to her bloodied vagina.

Wow. I was going to make a comment about the "feedback" Jazz received on the Pajamas Media site, but the comments here have taken a turn almost as bad.

Shaun -

That twisted logic can be applied to any leader of men, in any armed conflict, in any war throughout history.

It is as twisted as saying the rape is Carter's fault for funding what became the Taliban, which begat Al Queda, which lead to 9/11, which led to the rape.

Or do you go back to the CIA re-instating the Peacock throne? Or Leonidas at Thermopylae?

This time you are just coming off like a nut, Shaun. Truly demented.

AR:

Moderates do not apologize for the excesses of the last eight years. They are ashamed of them. And your ability to read much more into my post on the rape-murder and comments thereon is positively Cheney-esque. So find something else to call yourself, because a moderate you ain't.

I am to presume that your daughter is or was a member of the armed forces.

Good for her, but unless she has some special insight from time spent in Iraq or Afghanistan, keep her out of the "discussion." I participated in one war and covered several others, so don't pull the American flag lapel pin crap with me.

I know of what I speak and write concerning war. You don't know jack.

Drool cups????

I think somebody is projecting a little bit. ; )

Shaun -

My mention of my daughter (who is indeed in the armed forces) was not directed at you, but at someone else I owed an apology to, and wasn't part the discussion between us at all. Nor do you have the right to tell me who or what to write about anyway.

What did I read into your post that was not there? You, in your own words, said Bush was 'complicitous', and "a direct line can be pretty much drawn from the Oval Office, with a slight detour to DefSec Rumsfeld's, to her bloodied vagina." Very moderate on your part, I must say.

It is interesting to me to see you go off on a revisionist history tangent as well. I seem to to remember you arguing for less troops, not more, indeed a full withdrawal from Iraq. Now suddenly, it is a lack of troops that led to this psychopathic young man committing his crimes.

I served in the Air Force and the Navy, so I have no need to justify myself to you on that front, either.

That's it for me, AR.

But first a final thought on this Memorial Day Weekend eve: How fortunate that the wheel of life didn't turn a little differently and you would be visiting your daughters grave site at Arlington National Cemetery. No good would have come from that except that it might have banished the hubris and arrogance that you share with the Bushes, Cheyneys and Rumsfelds since even you would probably then understand that your loved one had perished in a war started on false pretenses for political folly and not national need.

Peace to you.

AR, apology accepted.

Shaun, I was being intentionally provocative in another post. I was not surprised that I got an angry response from AR. My intention was to break through the numbness induced by intellectualizing about 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' I pointed to the Abu Ghraib photos and asked if we really wanted our sons and daughters, including AR's daughter, taught to inflict degradation and sexual humiliation on others. Ordered to do so. That is repulsive to me, and I think we've become numb to it by the focus on euphemisms and 'waterboarding.' Degradation and humiliation are rationalized by the torture memos, and our soldiers were taught to and ordered to practice what are clearly perverted acts.

Today, those on the right, especially Cheney, argue that we are 'less safe' if we don't practice these kinds of perversion. They're wrong. I believe most Americans are decent people, and I believe we can act with decency, even in the treatment of our enemies. Remember, many of those we captured are teens, or barely out of their teens. Many are innocent. To teach our young soldiers that behaving as those in Abu Ghraib did is a part of honorable national service is just deplorable, and I hope we never do that again.

Note to editors: ban me if you'd like, as I know this is a violation of comment policy. However, I can't refrain from pointing out that Shaun Mullen's comments toward AR in this thread have been despicable.

AR: Hopefully one will emerge soon, but I think anyone who is tempted to is smart enough to sit back, and not provide a running start to the fringe side of the Republican party, which would indeed try to derail them.

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, too. I also think the GOP would do well to try to retire the whole "moderate vs. conservative" distinction and go with something else. Those two terms have gotten so toxic and divisive that it makes them difficult to overcome. I'm not sure what the best alternative would be as yet, but my personal favorite is "principled vs. unprincipled". Anyway, the Dems seem to have pulled off their own relabeling maneuver to great effect. Even many die-hard liberals stopped calling themselves "liberals" for a while and went with "progressives" instead. Objectively it's largely meaningless, but it has the same kind of flavor as "liberal" but with more positive connotations and far less baggage.

I also find it curious that DINO has never had the same negative connotation in Dem circles as RINO does in Rep circles. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that as soon as they started losing they set up a 50 state strategy to attract competent candidates with a diverse spectrum of opinions. Granted, those opinions have something of a central tendency (in statistics speak), which means they overlap to one degree or another. But one would be hard-pressed to identify any single issue on which all of them agree at the same time. There is, in other words, no required "core principles" litmus test, just some fuzzy "central tendency" test. It seems to me that all a Democratic candidate has to be is somewhere in the right ballpark for whatever constituents they intend to represent -- or in other words, just a bit more "progressive" than whoever they're running against. In most cases that's good enough.

AR, you mentioned a number of personal opinions that you consider "moderate". I'm not going to argue with you on that level. In fact, I'm guessing your probably right. And you're probably right that no one is likely to try to kick you out of the GOP party because of them. The really essential question is... do you think a candidate with such a stated compendium of views is likely to win a state-wide Republican primary anywhere in the country? And okay yeah, there probably is someplace (FL may be an example). But really, how many? That's the bottom line problem as I see it.

I agree with CStanley that Shaun Mullen's comments toward Austin Roth here have been despicable.

I'm not in favor of banning anyone. (I'm certainly not in favor of banning CStanley.) Just the opposite--let's see who you really are.

But Shaun has been exposing himself as exactly this kind of guy for years now. So I don't know why anyone bothers to comment on his threads.

Shaun Mullen is not worth your aggravation.

At all.

Rico - I actually do think there are many places a 'moderate Republican', defined as having many or most of the views I expressed, could be elected to statewide office.

The problem, as has been noted in so many places, is that primaries are dominated by the agenda-seekers, and the more fringe.

In the 70's, the Republicans faced a crisis of leadership, and overcame it in the 80's. In the 80's, the Democrats were the disorganized party ruled by their fringe, and overcame it. The pendulum swings back and forth, and eventually we will be talking about what can the Democratic Party do to avoid irrelevance. And so on and so on.

What does finally happen to break the cycle each time, though, is that a group of like-minded people decide to challenge the tired, old leadership, which thinks it owns the party and the agenda, only to be shown the door.

Shaun -

My views, and my daughter's, differ from yours on this war, its justness, and service and war in general.

She is only recently joined, and we did indeed discuss the possibility of her death in duty. She said to me that while she has no desire to die defending her country if it can be avoided, if that is what happens, then she is OK with it. Others have died before her so that she could have the freedoms and life she enjoyed as a child and young adult, and she fully understood and accepted the commitment she was making to future generations, to do the same if that is what happens.

The arrogance is yours Shaun, that you believe that your feelings toward the Iraq war are the only legitimate ones. I actually respect your right to feel the way you do, but you have shown no respect whatsoever towards those who disagree with your positions.

And you insist on projecting a level of malice towards those who did do what they thought was right to defend the country. I do not agree with everything done in the GWOT, but unlike you, I do not have to demonize those who made the decisions.

Enough for me now on this as well.