Sunday, October 19, 2008

Colin Powell's New Best Friend


Gee, a black political figure endorsing Obama..there's something unique for you!

As predicted, Colin Powell pulled the trigger for the Chosen One. This has probably been in the works for quite some time, but Powell obviously co-ordinated his announcement with the campaign for maximum impact.

Or maybe the negotiations just needed to be finalized, if you know what I mean. Let's see what kind of position Powell ends up with if Obama gets in.

While endorsing his new best friend on 'Meet The Press', Obama took shots at the 'negative tone' of the McCain campaign:

Powell also said he was “troubled” by Republican personal attacks on Obama, especially false intimations that Obama was Muslim and Republicans’ recent focus on Obama’s alleged connections to William Ayers, the founder of the radical ’60 Weather Underground.

('alleged'???)

Stressing that Obama was a lifelong Christian, Powell denounced Republican tactics that he said were insulting not only to to Obama but also to Muslims.

“The really right answer is what if he is?” Powell said, praising the contributions of millions of Muslim citizens to American society.

“I look at these kind of approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me,” Powell said. “Over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party has become narrower and narrower.”



Now, far be it from me to question Powell's integrity, but when has the McCain campaign ever insinuated that Obama is a Muslim? Lots of Americans rightfully question why Obama, who obviously once was a Muslim in his early years would lie about it, and his intimate connections to Islamists, the Saudis and the Nation of Islam are certainly fair game, but he's obviously not a practicing Muslim now. The McCain Campaign never intimated that he was,although I would argue that no one who sat in Trinity United for two decades and listened to the racist spew of Jeremiah Wright could be characterized as a 'Christian'.

Powell pulled off another funny by lashing out at Sarah Palin, saying “I don’t believe [Palin] is ready to be president of the United States” and telling the talking heads at 'Meet The Press' that McCain's pick of Palin caused him to question McCain's judgment.

Like Obama has the resume and experience to be president, General? Whom do you think you're zoomin'?

Powell also had a couple of nasty remarks to make about those nasty conservative appointments to the Supreme Court....he'd prefer Obama's ultra-Left appointments.

Of course, as Powell went out of his way to point out, this isn't about race...nuh-uh, no way! Even if that's not quite what he was saying before.

Rush Limbaugh, as usual, has the right of it "OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."

Actually, this is only a little bit about race, but it is more about Colin Powell wanting to do what advances Colin Powell.

He's always been like that.

When the GOP controlled Washington, he sucked up to them and the Republicans stoo-pidly rewarded him as the poster boy proof of See-We're-Not-All-Racists even though his military career was at best indifferent and well, political. So Powell and the GOP used each other.

Powell's stint on MTP was a bunch of unchallenged Obama talking points, and as I said the timing was obviously coordinated with the Obama campaign. Watch and see if he doesn't become a special envoy or ambassador of some sort.

This is a particularly spiteful little betrayal coming from Powell, who's been close to McCain for years and who has personally benefited from his associations with all those nasty conservatives. But not... unexpected.

After all, this is the man who allowed Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney to take the flak for the failed Iraq occupation and nation building strategy Powell and Clinton holdover George Tenet came up with, even though Powell and Tenet's plan won out over Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were pushing for the exact opposite..and Powell never said a word.

UPDATE: McCain admitted today to being surprised that Colin Powell didn't even bother calling him first to let him know Powell was jumping on board the Obama express. He shouldn't have been.


8 comments:

Python said...

IMHO Whatever Mr. Powell's reasons are to support Obama are , I think we should just respect his right to decide what he thinks is best,
I'd certainly expect him and anyone else to respect my choice .

We all have our right to decide as we please even though it displeases others , and we can only hope that common sense prevails over pop culture in this election, and I'm sure that means for many that McCain wins .

Colin Powells choice is not mine, it's not yours , it's not McCains either but you never know ...

Even though they make a symbolic gesture when they vote a politicians personal choice is not really the issue here , it's the American vote that counts this season ....the elctoral college of states

if Powell so thinks that the McCain campaign and supporters are racists or are running a cruel and unusual campaign to defame others , then first of all , let's not go out of our way to prove him correct by falling into a trap to bash him , instead let's show just how mistaken he really is by deferring any anger over Powell and concentrating in the facts surrounding Obama .
.
One other thing that comes to my mind in my knowledge of the political history of Colin Powell , I couldn't believe it what I heard , but now I even suspect that old Colin may be out to doing a little " Astro-turfing" on his own or with the help of Rove maybe you remember the old fox right ? ....like Rove may have an unwritten rule here bouncing around , something like : "you may never know for sure about any politicians true party affiliations but that can and may be used as a subtle suprise in a way to cause the Obamunists to overload in jubilence and tip their hand when it comes to forcing their choice on others in a very tight election , and considering that the race card is being consistently used by the Obama campaign to beat the opposition I suggest that this may just be the case .

Think about it ...I know it's not easy to agree with ,and .it's actually a thought out of the box , but you never really know about these things , you never know about Colin Powell he could be with Obama , but he hasn't really ever shown it until today , I find that very odd .

Freedom Fighter said...

Hi Python,
And welcome to Joshua's Army.

I have no problem with colin Powell voicing his choice, and in truth I wouldn't have it ant other way.

Where we differ is on whether that choice should be respected, and I think I've given a number of reasons why I don't think it should be.

Powell can endorse Ahmadinejad for US president for all I care, but it doesn't mean such choices should be diginified with 'respect'...particularly since Powell presumably knows that Obama is a dangerous pillow case on foreign affairs and national security, but could apparently care less.

No, this is about tribal loyalty and a possible position for Powell in the Obama Administration..and if you read the links, he's been working towards this for awhile now.

Intersting thought on ROVE but IMO if Rove ( or Styeve Schmidt, fo rthat matter) had all that much influence on the McCain campaign the polls would look very different now.

Thanks for dropping by..

ff

Anonymous said...

FF,

How can you suggest Colin Powell endorsed Obama solely on racial identity when records show Powell maxed out in campaign contributions this cycle to McCain? Further, if that was his only reason, why did he wait so late?

Why not jump on board right away?

Seems like the facts argue against your opinion on this one. And all the other conservative establishment leaders who have abandoned the hard right turn of the GOP, are they endorsing Obama merely because he's black?

Freedom Fighter said...

Hello Cowboy, And welcome to Joshua's Army.

If you reread carefully, you will see that while I cited race as a small motivation, Colin Powell's main motivation was the advancement of Colin Powell, something that has been very typical of the man...thus the semi-sarcastic title, Colin Powell's new best friend.

Obviously the so-called 'hard right turn' you mention had nothing to do with it, as Powell was happy to take largesse and position from those Evil Conservatives before.

Likewise, his trashing of Sarah Palin as 'inexperienced' is almost comical compared to the experience of the man he's endorsing for the White House.

No...as the links show, he was bought a long time ago, and this announcement was obviously coordinated with the Obama campaign.

And by the way, another indication of Powell's character is that according to John McCain, a friend of long standing, Powell lacked even the basic courtesy to call him and let him know prior to announcing this.

Thanks for dropping by.

Regards,
ff

Anonymous said...

FF,

Powell didn't say Palin was "inexperienced" he said she wasn't ready. Meaning, she had not demonstrated in any MSM interviews (she's yet to give a full-on press conference) an in-depth knowledge of foriegn policy issues or orignal thinking and has been instead focused on "narrowcasting" and sloganeering. Big difference, FF

Freedom Fighter said...

Hi Cowboy,
I think that considering Powell's general stance, `not ready' and 'inexperienced' pretty much mean the same thing in this context.

What else COULD he mean?

An dif Palin 'isn't ready' to be VP, are you seriously suggesting that Obama is ready to be president because he's had some fawning softball interviews from the likes of Katy Couric or Chris Matthews?

Actually, if you're interested, Obama had made a number of extremely important foreign policy gaffes..like advocating invading an area the size of Texas with a mere 6,000 men, attempting to defund our troops during wartime, shooting his mouth off about it and helping to destabilize a US ally, his opposition to our successful surge strategy in Iraq, forgetting that Afghanistan is landlocked, 75% of US supplies for our troops there come through Karachi andcreating a hostile Pakistan is a sure route to failure, his mishandling of policy designed to get NATO members to up their troop committments in Afghanistan...I could go on, but if foreign policy is your concern, Obama's not the guy. Neither is Biden, who's foreign policy positions hav ebeen proven to be incredibly mistaken over time.

And speaking of Biden..when was th elast time Slow Joe gave a press conference?

Thanks for dropping by...

ff

Anonymous said...

FF,

You probably won't print this. But I'm in the Army and headed to either Iraq or Afghanistan next year (depending on who gets elected).

Either way, 20% of out brigade, at this point, is headed to Afghanistan. To be honest, that is the fight we should have stayed with and might have wrapped up by now if it weren't for our distraction in Iraq, a country that had nothing provable to do with 9/11.

In any case, not all of us, but many more than you might imagine, are hoping Obama gets elected.

And that's because unlike Sen. McCain, Obama's thinking has been clearer and not as fuzzed up with subjective ideas about coming home with honor and victory and other Vietnam-era regrets. Sen. McCain is an honorable man. A very honorable man.

However, many of us believe he is too haunted by ghosts of the past for soilders of the present to have to fight his old battles for.

Vanquishing a veteran's shame is not a sound reason to start or stay in any war. Not when young lives are at stake and they are needed elsewhere.

Thanks for posting this,

Cowboy Picayune

Freedom Fighter said...

Hi Cowboy,
I don't censor stuff here unless it's stoo-pid, libelous, or pimping the sale of something like viagra, travel or porn. You're welcome to comment anytime as long as you stay within those bounds.

As a matter of fact, a lot of military and ex-Military are members of Joshua's Army and coommunicate with me regularly via comments or e-mail. One of them was my old pal Captain Jimmy (who's back home now) who had a starring role in the 10th Mountain's part of Operation Mountain Thrust. He was th eone that clued me in on exactly how ridiculous Obama's plan to invade Waziristan with a couple of brigades really was.

The problem with Afghanistan is the whole problem with the way th eWar onm Jihad has been managed from the start - afailure to confront the nation states that finance, nuture and harbor the Islamist ideology..and that includes Iran and the Saudis, as well as Pakistan. Notice I said 'confront' and not 'go to war with', Cowboy..although that's always an option.

Al Qaeda and th4e Taliban are just subcontractors, and until we deal with the root of th4e problem, we'll continue to fight defensive war of attrition.

I actually dealt with winning in Afghanistan at some length here, and you may find it interesting.Read it.

The problem as I stated before is that Afghanistan is landlocked and if you piss off Pakistan by opening hostilities. you better be prepared to invade the whole country unless you want our guys cut off from 75% of their supplies..which flow through Karachi and have no other viable way of getting there.

So thre's a thin line that has to be walked.

This wasn't so much of a problem when Musharraf was in, but Obama's silly remarks helped destabilize him because he was seena s a US ally..that, and a nice assist from Condi and the State Department insisting he allow Bhutto and her husband back into the country as 'partners'.

We can either do our best to do AFghanistan/Pakistan right, or pull out and allow them to become Jihadi wonderland. And if you think that won't result in severe consequences back home, I beg to differ.

McCain is merely looking at this from that standpoint, and I don't feel he's 'haunted by the ghosts of the past' as much as looking at this strategically. He proved to be damned right when it came to the surge, which was one reason Afghanistan heated up...al Qaeda was forced out of Iraq, which they hoped to take over and have now been pushed back to their bases in Waziristan after losing a lot of manpower, resources and credibility.

PS: No matter who gets elected,the troops going overseas will still be going overseas. If you're one of them, best of luck, watch your six and keep in touch, OK?

Regards,

ff