Colin Powell had no choice but to endorse BRCK BM if he wanted to rehabilitate his career and make an opening for himself in the Leftist super-majority everyone is expecting to seize Washington. His reputation took a severe hit from the flawed intelligence included in his U.N. presentation on Iraq, so Powell’s only option was to endorse the one candidate who has come to symbolize the anti-war movement, someone who wasn’t forced to consider the threat, weigh the evidence and make a responsible decision. Just as they’ve done with John Kerry, John Edwards and Joe Biden, the radical Left will eventually swallow hard and largely forgive Powell’s trespasses.
If General Powell were to endorse John McCain, the Left would have shrugged him off, nobody would have listened, and his situation would have remained unchanged. Endorsing McCain certainly wouldn’t have landed Powell a free, 30-min commercial on Meet the Press.
So I believe Gen. Powell when he says race wasn’t the main factor in his decision. But I must say his stated reasons leave much to be desired; Powell had to endorse an inexperienced, radical Leftist whose career was launched by anti-American racists, domestic terrorists and the Chicago machine… because John McCain has moved the Republican Party too far to the right? Please.
UPDATE: The knee-jerk Leftists over at Post Politics assume I wouldn’t have questioned Powell if he had endorsed McCain, as if I’ve been slavishly devoted to McCain rather than critical of both campaigns. I can’t be too hard on those commenting, since they’re ignorant of my actual position, being too lazy to actually visit the site and engage in dialogue here; it’s much easier to comment via a third-party’s excerpt and make an uninformed judgment.
Jon says “it can’t possibly be that he honestly thought Obama was the better choice. For, ya know, all the reasons he actually gave us.” If Powell had given us a plausible reason, sure. He didn’t.
Bobby Blevins says, “It was about more than preserving power and influence. I bet you would have accepted his answers on Meet the Press completely if it had been for John McCain.” If in your hypothetical situation Powell had endorsed McCain, and was actually given 30 minutes on Meet the Press for what otherwise would have been considered a non-story, I imagine Powell at least would have been forced to come up with plausible reasons for supporting him.
In such a hypothetical situation, Powell could have said: McCain’s the most moderate Republican Presidential candidate in decades; he’s got a long history of exemplary service to this country; he puts his convictions ahead of his party and consistently works across party lines; he’s been an effective, productive and influential Senator; he has a wide and deep knowledge of foreign affairs; he helped set the table for victory in Iraq by criticizing the Bush administration’s handling of the war and supporting the new strategy; he was prescient in his assessment of Fannie Mac and Fannie Mae; he has a clear understanding of the threats presented by radical Islam and dictatorial regimes around the world; he’s been an advocate of vulnerable populations such as veterans and the unborn; he’s not an ideologue; he’s a leader in the charge against wasteful spending; he’s not set in his ways and is willing to admit error; etc, etc.
Alternatively, Powell could have given solid reasons not to support McCain. He could have talked about McCain’s moral failings, his inconsistency, his uneven temperament, his shallow understanding of economic theory, his reckless policies on campaign finance and immigration, etc, etc.
Instead, Powell invented this BS about McCain being too conservative and cited some unattributed comment about Muslims and a photograph he saw in a magazine. Meanwhile, by some grotesque insult to circular logic, he considers BRCK BM qualified to be POTUS by nature of his having campaigned for two years, while Gov. Palin is unqualified to be VPOTUS. This is not the sober assessment of a disinterested individual.
UPDATE II: A second-degree Instalanche. Welcome friends of Glenn Reynolds; he would have linked directly, but since I’ve never had an abortion… well, let’s just say it’s one of those little-known secrets to getting linked by the big libertarian blogs.
OTHERS: Donald Sensing
SURPRISE: “Colin Powell will have a role as a top presidential adviser in an Obama administration, the Democratic White House hopeful said today.”
Powell, Kerry, and Edwards have something in common: they admit that the war was a mistake. Hillary Clinton refused to acknowledge that and it hurt her in the primaries.
Powell got lots of coverage because he’s a Republican endorsing a Democrat, just like Zell Miller did four years ago. I actually think he would have gotten a fair amount of coverage for endorsing McCain this year for the simple reason that McCain is behind, and it would have halted some of his negative momentum.
Remember, the media wants a horse race to keep their ratings up. If the race wasn’t competitive, they wouldn’t make as much money off the ads!
John McCain didn’t move the GOP to the right, the GOP moved to the right and McCain followed along.
Colin Powell came to prominence under Ronald Reagan, hero of the Right. Is it Powell’s contention that the GOP has moved to further right under Bush 41 and 43, and that John McCain represents a continuation of a rightward trend? That’s absurd, which is why Powell’s stated reasoning is implausible.
Powell endorses Obama…Harry Belafonte must be excited.
Powell suggested that one indication of McCain moving the party further right was his selection of Palin as a running mate:
“And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift.”
The Palin selection troubled him for other reasons as well, though:
“And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She’s a very distinguished woman, and she’s to be admired. But at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president.
And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.”
He also expressed a wariness concerning McCain’s possible Supreme Court appointments:
“I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that’s what we’d be looking at in a McCain administration.”
What about McCain’s selection of Gov. Palin indicates “a further rightward shift”? Is Gov. Palin to the right of Ronald Reagan? Is she even to the right of George W. Bush? Would McCain nominate, and succeed in appointing, justices further to the right of Reagan’s nominees?
I can’t read Powell’s mind, but I suspect he views Palin as a further shift to the right in the sense that she appeals to the evangelical portion of the party.
Let’s recap the general since he was fired by Bush in 2004… his right hand man acted as an undercover agent in the Plame affair; he went on TV and said the presentation of his intelligence package to the UN–which he helped to vet himself–was his worst moment in life; then he endorses a near unknown/quasi-socialist/friends of radicals who has zero military experience over his long-time friend John McCain.
Yeah, I think Mick has a point.
It’s fair to speculate on why Powell made his endorsement–or why any political figure makes a given choice–but the degree of certainty with which A.C. and Mick are making their claims strikes me as more than a bit presumptuous.
Mick, you wrote, “But I must say his stated reasons leave much to be desired.” For you, yes, they do. Given your assessment of Obama–”an inexperienced, radical Leftist whose career was launched by anti-American racists, domestic terrorists and the Chicago machine”–I can’t imagine a scenario in which you would’ve felt satisfied with Powell’s endorsement regardless of what explanation he offered. Perhaps Powell is indeed harboring ulterior motives–again, asserting that he does in no way actually proves he does–but Powell is certainly not the first Republican to back Obama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_Republican or criticize the McCain campaign on the grounds that he (Powell) did, particularly in regards to Palin.
In his endorsement of Obama, Christopher Buckley writes:
“But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, ‘We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.’ This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget ‘by the end of my first term.’ Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?”
And then, of course, a number of right-leaning newspapers have also endorsed Obama. Heck, The Eagle in College Station, Texas did.
So what separates Powell’s endorsement from the others? Ulterior motives? Possibly. But the fact his endorsement could provide a much greater impact on the race than the other endorsements leads me to speculate that much of the backlash/criticism of the endorsement is a case of sour grapes.
Why did Powell endorse Obama?
We won’t know for sure until we see what appointed political position he gets in an Obama administration. Until then, everyone is just speculating. The bottom line, though, is probably that Obama promised him the better deal and it looks now like Obama will win.
Look, Powell rose to the top of the heap in the most political of all communities: the community of West Point grad officers in the United States Army. Like the master politician he is, he most likely weighed the odds and kept his options open while he negotiated with both sides and kept a close eye on the polls. Now he can cut his deal and make his endorsement with Obama thinking that a Powell endorsement will be the “clincher” that he needs to seal the deal.
Jason, It’s funny how you think I’m being presumptuous regarding Powell but then turn around and assume that no endorsement would satisfy me and that my reaction is simply “sour grapes.”
I would be satisfied with any endorsement that deals realistically with the candidates’ actual strengths and weaknesses, or details specific policy or ideological reasons to support one or the other.
I offered what could be a satisfactory rejection of McCain above, and I’ve heard satisfactory endorsements of BRCK BM. I’m not totally unsatisfied with Buckley’s endorsement, though I would have expected more concrete reasons from him.
I like BRCK BM as a person. I appreciate his intelligence. He’s charming. He delivers a good speech. So I can easily understand why someone who lines up with him ideologically might eagerly endorse him. I can also understand why both conservatives and liberals alike might be critical of John McCain — he certainly wasn’t my first choice.
But if you’re going on national television and presenting your case, you don’t go prepared with a photo you saw in a magazine and a quote you think you heard some unnamed person other than the candidate say. No serious person is swayed by that.
Mick, I was merely speculating and admittedly being a bit snarky. I do find your questioning of Powell’s endorsement more thoughtful than some others I’ve read and heard over the past two days.
Powell’s endorsement rested on more than a photo and an unattributed quote. His explanation may have lacked the specificity you would’ve liked, but in watching Meet the Press and reading the transcript of the show twice, I find his basic reasons for choosing Obama akin to endorsements I’ve read from some other Republicans as well as the right-leaning papers that have backed Obama.
As for the photo and the unattributed quote, Powell followed up the story by saying, “Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.” I think on this particular point, then, he’s repudiating an increasingly insular and xenophobic attitude he sees in the Republican party more so than he’s criticizing McCain.
I get that. Still, Powell says it’s “narrow” to bring up BRCK BM’s relationship with members of the Weather Underground, but the comments of an unnamed Republican unconnected to McCain is… what?
Why isn’t Powell bothered by the increasingly insular, racist invective spewing from the pulpit of Obama’s church of 20 years, Trinity United; the systemic voter fraud organized by Obama’s colleagues at ACORN; or the corruption of Obama’s friends and contributors in Chicago?
The simplest explanation is that it’s in Powell’s self-interest to do what he did.
If Powell were alone (or perhaps one in a handful) in his endorsement of Obama/criticism of McCain, then I’d say there would be a stronger case to argue that he made the choice out of self-interest and political expediency. Given that his rationale is in keeping with that of other Republican figures who have endorsed Obama with nothing to gain, I just find the argument tenuous.
[...] Posted by DaytonBuck Link You gotta love it when F-list bloggers profess to have insight into a public figure’s [...]
Of course Palin is way further right than Bush. She (probably like you) is a Christian Dominionist. You talk about Rev Wright, Obama has thoroughly repudiated Wright. Palin on the other hand has credited a Kenyan witch hunting pastor for her success. The same pastor Muthee that called for a “religious invasion” of all aspects of society – politics, gov’t, education and prayed for financial support of Palin. Palin’s Wasilla Pastor talked about Alaska being a refuge in the end times and Palin has been quoted as saying she thinks she’ll see Jesus return in her lifetime. Imagine that nut-job with her finger on the nuclear button. Behold, space age weaponry in the hands of a person led by a Dark Ages mentality. If that is not alarming, I don’t know what is.
The level of bigotry, ignorance and hate seen at Palin rallies in the small towns she calls “real America” has been disgusting. They don’t call it the white KKKristian party for nothing. These people of this mindset need to be soundly defeated and they will be. They’ve earned a good ass kicking.
My point is that Powell eloquently refuted this bigotry, and in doing so, sparked the calls from thugs like Limbaugh that his support was based on race. Now we can see who the real racists are.
The powerful statement from Powell regarding the “Muslim Obama” -
“Well the correct answer, he is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is ‘what if he is?’ Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no, that’s not America.”
Take note white KKKristian party. Your values are anti-American, your party is poison and going down.