Colin Powell: Oops

Today seems to be the day for "oops" posts from prominent supporters of Obama.  Campaign Spot has a piece on Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State for George W. Bush, who endorsed Obama in 2008 (largely due to race) and now is clearly having second thoughts:

Sunday: “Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president in 2008 despite serving three Republican presidents, said Sunday that Obama needs to change his approach in the White House because voters are feeling overwhelmed by sweeping new laws that expand the scope of government. 'The president also has to . . . shift the way in which he has been doing things,' Powell said on NBC’s 'Meet the Press.' 'The American people feel that too many programs have come down. There are so many rocks in our knapsack now that we’re having trouble carrying it.'”


You’re probably scoffing at how milquetoast that is, but inside-the-Beltway, this is a big deal. Colin Powell doesn’t go on these Sunday morning programs unless he wants to, and he doesn’t appear unless he has something to say. Powell could have easily demurred, murmured soothing sounds about the difficulty of governing in the modern age with the 24-7 news cycle and expressed confidence that, in time, the wisdom of the president’s decisions would be clear. Mild as Powell’s criticism is, by Washington standards, we just witnessed the political equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval leaping out of a moving vehicle in desperation.

Powell, who nobody disputes is a smart guy, got suckered by hope and change, not to mention the whole "first black president" thing. The thing is, there was a time when Powell himself might have been able to become the first black president but chose not to run, and I'm thankful for that because I doubt he would have been much of an improvement over Obama.  He turned out to be pretty much a squish on conservative issues.

Dems 2008: Protest is Patriotic / Dems 2009: Protest is Racist

From Politico (h/t Don Surber):

Eight months into Barack Obama’s presidency, as criticism of his administration seems to reach new levels of volume and intensity each week, the whispers among some of his allies are growing louder: That those who loathe the nation’s first African-American president, and especially those who would deny his citizenship, are driven at least in part by racism.

It’s a feeling that’s acutely felt among those supporters of Obama who are themselves minorities. Conversations with Democrats at an otherwise upbeat Democratic National Committee fall gathering here, an event largely devoted to party housekeeping, reflected a growing anger at what many see as a troubling effort to delegitimize Obama’s hold on the office.

“As far as African-Americans are concerned, we think most of it is,” said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), when asked in an interview in between sessions how much of the more extreme anger at Obama is based upon his race. “And we think it’s very unfortunate. We as African-American people of course are very sensitive to it.”

I know a lot of people who are opposed to Obama. I read blogs and articles by a lot of folks opposed to Obama. I don't know a single person among that group that is opposed to Obama because of his race. His race is irrelevant. It's his policies that are turning people against him.

In order to believe that race is the issue you'd have to believe that these same people would have opposed Condi Rice, Michael Steele or Colin Powell had they been candidates. To be fair, I would have opposed Colin Powell, but on his policies, not his skin color.

False accusations always have unintended consequences, and in this case they are cheapening the term "racist" to the point where it will have no real meaning. It's the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" syndrome written in real life. If everyone's a racist, no one's a racist and when real racism shows up, no one will pay attention to the charge.

I get called a racist three or four times a day by Obama syncophants. There was a time when that might have bothered me. It doesn't anymore.

Colin Powell Admits His Obama Endorsement Was All About Race

In so many words:

Colin Powell, one of President Obama's most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president's ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.

"I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them," Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN's John King, released by the network Friday morning.

Mr. Powell, a retired U.S. army general who rose to political prominence after a long and accomplished military career, said that health care reform and many of Mr. Obama's other initiatives are "important" to Americans.

But, he said, "one of the cautions that has to be given to the president -- and I've talked to some of his people about this -- is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all."

"And we can't pay for it all," said Mr. Powell, who was the first African-American to serve as secretary of state, under former President George W. Bush. He was also national security adviser to President Reagan, and was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993.

The policies that Powell is now hesitant about are nothing new for Obama. He was pushing this stuff during the campaign when Powell endorsed him.

I guess Powell still is a Republican.

He was just blinded by The One's skin color.

Dumbest Poll of the Day

From CNN/Opinion Research:

Powell Much More Popular Than Cheney, Limbaugh

Boy, that's gonna be a real problem when Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney run against Colin Powell in the primary.

Except, of course, none of those people are running for anything. The only purpose in this poll is to somehow validate Colin Powell's opinion because he's more popular than the other guys. What tripe.

If there's one thing the pollsters should have learned from November is that you can be really popular and still be really wrong (see OBAMA, BARACK).

Powell's latest mantra is the GOP must open itself up to moderates and not rely on a "narrow" conservative base represented by people like Limbaugh and Cheney. However, when he had the chance to support a moderate GOP candidate, he fled the party and endorsed Barack Obama.

What that tells me is he doesn't really mean what he's saying now, and he endorsed Obama strictly because he was black. If he truly supported a moderate GOP agenda, John McCain should have been just what the Colin ordered.

It was all about the skin color, and after Powell has finished molding the GOP in his image, he'll turn around and support Obama again in 2012. He just can't help himself.

RINO Revolt

The RINOs are revolting, as reported by British journalist Toby Harnden:

Amid much ballyhoo, Colin Powell, former Secretary of State in the Bush administration, went on "Meet the Press" last October and endorsed Barack Obama for President.

His move was no real surprise and had been anticipated for at least a year but the timing and manner of it seemed designed to wreak the maximum political damage to his old friend John McCain.

So why does Powell now seem to think he has the right or credibility to lecture Republicans on how their party should be run? Just as he did not just go quietly into the polling booth and vote for Obama, Powell is not working discreetly behind the behind the scenes at party gatherings to press his case.

No, he did his business on a Sunday television talk show, CBS's Face the Nation, today - watch it here.

Now it's easy to feel some sympathy for Powell. He was clearly marginalised during the Bush administration, lost the big arguments and yet was the man who will be remembered ever more for his UN presentation in which he pressed the case for war with Iraq based on evidence that has since crumbled.

Vice President Cheney was perhaps unnecessarily cutting when he said that he assumed Powell had already left the party. Being goaded by Rush Limbaugh about having voted for Obama "solely based on race" must be very difficult to take.
But thinking that you can vote for the Democratic presidential candidate - and one assumes that Powell still supports Obama and will vote for him in 2012 - and remain a senior figure in the Republican party is trying to have your cake and eat it.
...

Another Republican moderate was on television today - Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania governor and Homeland Security chief, who appeared on John King's State of the Union. Transcript here.

As expected, Ridge duly laid into Cheney and Limbaugh. Then, when he was asked whether he would support the Republican nominee in the Pennsylvania Senate race if it were (as is highly likely) Pat Toomey he pointedly declined to do so.

After Ridge said that he had a "secret ballot"and was "going to wait to see if the people that I know whom I might support decide to make the difficult decision to run" King - as usual - posed exactly the right follow-up.

"Why should any Republicans listen to you if you won't commit to voting for the Republican nominee?" King asked.

Ridge responded: "Well, it begins on the message and the messenger. You know, I'm a strong, strong, Republican, but I'd be - I've never, ever, ever voted straight Republican ticket in my life and I never will."

Well, that's fine and of course Ridge is entitled to vote for whoever he wants to, just as Powell is.

My point is not that Powell and Ridge have not been fine public servants or do not have a huge amount to offer their country. It isn't even that their ideas about the Republican party needing to broaden its base if it is to return to power are not valid. They may well be absolutely right.

But there's a reason why political parties exist, and party discipline matters. Most parties rightly expect their senior members to vote for that party's candidates or if they do not at the very least to keep quiet about it. If not then the party is damaged.

For the time being, though, Republicans are being told what they must do by one man who will almost certainly vote for Obama in 2012 and another who will almost certainly vote for Senator Arlen Specter, a newly-minted Democrat, in 2010.

It's hardly surprising that many Republicans don't like this at all.

Why should we listen to either of these guys? They both want a party that is more aligned with liberals than conservatives. We already have that party - they're called Democrats and that's where both of these guys belong. We don't need two Democrat parties.

Dick Cheney on the Offense

Gotta love the former VP:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday continued his verbal attack against President Obama, saying that the country is more vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack since the Obama administration took power.

Mr. Cheney said that administration's dismantling of many of the policies and protections instituted by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — including the planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and halting controversial prisoner interrogation techniques — have made the country more vulnerable to future attacks.

"That's my belief," Mr. Cheney said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I think to the extent that those [Bush-era] policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies … means in the future we're not going to have the same safeguards we've had for the last eight years."

The former vice president defended controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, saying that it had been an effective tool in extracting useful information from suspected terrorists such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of helping carry out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Washington and New York.

"He did not cooperate fully in terms of interrogations until after waterboarding," Mr. Cheney said. "Once we went through that process, he produced vast quantities of invaluable information about al Qaida."

Mr. Obama in January banned the practice on prisoners by U.S. interrogators.

Mr. Cheney said he believes it's his duty to speak out against the Obama administration "because I think the issues that are at stake here are so important."
Mr. Cheney also took a shot at former Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell, saying that the conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh is a more loyal Republican than the former Army commander.

"If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh," Mr. Cheney said.

That line about choosing Limbaugh over Powell will set the left off far more than any criticisms of Obama.

Colin Powell, Please Go Away

At one time Colin Powell held a lot of promise as a possible presidential candidate. Now he's just annoying:

The Republican Party is in big trouble and needs to find a way to move back to the middle of the country, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday.

Powell said the GOP is "getting smaller and smaller" and "that's not good for the nation." He also said he hopes that emerging GOP leaders, such as House Minority Whip Cantor, will not keep repeating mantras of the far right.

"The Republican Party is in deep trouble," Powell told corporate security executives at a conference in Washington sponsored by Fortify Software Inc. The party must realize that the country has changed, he said. "Americans do want to pay taxes for services," he said. "Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

Do you want to pay more taxes? Are you looking for more government in your life? If not, you must not be Americans. I guess all those people who showed up on April 15th to protest against higher taxes and bigger government aren't Americans either.

Powell always had a liberal bent. Now he's clearly gone all the way over to the dark side.

Colin Who?

When Colin Powell endorsed Obama on Sunday the breathless media told us this story would dominate the news all week. Well, it's only Tuesday. How come I can only find one story in the media referring to Powell, and that's on Politico which has been carrying the water for Obama the entire campaign?

It appears to me that the Powell endorsement might have titillated the media, but otherwise whatever impact it might have had has already dissipated.

Rush Limbaugh Responds to the Powell Endorsement

I think Rush has it right (as usual):

Rush Limbaugh said Colin Powell's decision to get behind Barack Obama appeared to be very much tied to Obama's status as the first African-American with a chance to become president.

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail. "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."

As for Powell's statement of concern this morning about the sort of Supreme Court justices a President McCain might appoint, Limbaugh wrote: "I was also unaware of his dislike for John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia. I guess he also regrets Reagan and Bush making him a four-star [general] and secretary of state and appointing his son to head the FCC. Yes, let's hear it for transformational figures."

Good points all. For a guy who has operated at the highest levels of government, his endorsement of Obama just doesn't make sense unless it's driven by race.

Colin Powell Completes His Move to the Left with a Stupid Decision

He may deny it, but I think race won out because qualifications certainly didn't:

WASHINGTON - Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president on Sunday, criticizing his own Republican Party for what he called its narrow focus on irrelevant personal attacks over a serious approach to challenges he called unprecedented.

Powell, who for many years was considered the most likely candidate to become the first African-American president, said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was not supporting Obama because of his race. He said he had watched both Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for many months and thought “either one of them would be a good president.”

But he said McCain’s choices in the last few weeks — especially his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his vice presidential running mate — had raised questions in his mind about McCain’s judgment.

“I don’t believe [Palin] is ready to be president of the United States,” Powell said flatly. By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, “is ready to be president on day one.”

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.

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.

There are so many things wrong with this. For one thing, no official of the Republican Party or the McCain campaign ever accused Obama of being a Muslim. That was coming from partisans who were not officials of either the campaign or the party, and it's disingenuous for Powell to bring that up as a reason for his decision.

Secondly, this "great leader" that Powell describes has created a country with the greatest divide between its citizens since the Civil War. Obama has shown absolutely no desire for any kind of bipartisanship, and instead has sought to suppress his political opposition and punish those who would be critical of him.

The "personal" attacks (as Powell describes them) have been legitimate attempts to point out the weaknesses in Obama's background and associations and fill in the gaps in his resume that the mainstream press won't do. That's all part of the campaign process, and if Powell can't understand or tolerate that, it's a good thing he never chose to run for elective office.

In another article Powell is described as being "uncomfortable with two more Republican Supreme Court nominations". Uncomfortable with justices like John Roberts or Sam Alito? He'd rather have more radicals like Ruth "Buzzy" Ginsberg or David Souter (a Republican nominee, by the way) who seek their precedence in European law? Foolish.

Powell is now trying to atone for the sins, real or imagined, he committed in the run-up to the Iraq War. He has been an object of derision among the left and he's trying to make it all better with this endorsement and weak reasoning. He's tired of being called an "Uncle Tom" and "house n-word" for being part of a Republican administration, and today he hopes he ended that.

And getting back to why I think race played a bigger part than anyone wants to admit, this item from Drudge from a few months ago:

FLASHBACK: Powell Told students an African-American president would be 'electrifying'...

I'll tell you what's going to be "electrifying" - having a president who doesn't know what he's doing working in concert with a Congress overwhelmingly populated with leftist Democrats. The good news is 2010 is shaping up to be a GOP wave year.

Powell has been moving left since even before he departed the White House, but the press will ignore that and just play up the "Republican endorses Obama" angle. Veteran political watchers will know this endorsement has been coming and expected for some time, but look for the press to play it as a huge surprise and development in the campaign.

At one point I thought he would make a good president. I was clearly wrong. He doesn't get it.

Colin Powell to Endorse the Obamessiah?

The media is abuzz with the planned appearance by Colin Powell on Meet the Press this Sunday, and are breathlessly hoping for an endorsement of Obama:

Retired Gen. Colin Powell, once considered a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now may endorse his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), according to Republican sources. But an air of mystery surrounds Powell’s planned live appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and no one is sure what he will say.

Powell’s unassailable national security credentials could sway voters who are vacillating about whether Obama is ready to be commander in chief, and his endorsement of the Illinois senator would make a national security emphasis by McCain in the election’s closing days extremely difficult.

I'm not sure an Obama endorsement would be as big a deal as the media wants it to be. Powell has moved decidely left since he departed the Bush Administration, largely due to his sensitivity to the criticism he received for his early stance on the war. Maybe he thinks he can save his personal credibility by endorsing The One.

Of course, nobody really knows who he's going to support until he announces it (if he ever does), and wouldn't it be something if he went on MTP and endorsed McCain? It's not out of the realm of possibility, and I'm afraid if he did Tom Brokaw would break down in tears right there on the set.

Colin Powell to Endorse the Obamessiah?

Bill Kristol thinks so:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, Weekly Standard Publisher Bill Kristol told FOX News exclusively on Thursday.

“He may well give a speech at the Democratic convention explaining his endorsement of Obama,” Kristol said, citing inside sources. “For whatever reason I think he has decided he’s going to endorse Obama. I think [Powell] has a high respect for Senator McCain, they go back a long way.”

Kristol continued, “This is not an absolute done deal, but these people are very confident that Powell will endorse Obama.”

Kristol said sources told him Powell will “quite possibly” speak at the Democratic convention on the same night as Obama’s vice-presidential selection and former President Bill Clinton.

“The Obama people are quietly trying to line up a pretty strong convention,” Kristol said. “I think the Obama campaign shouldn’t be underestimated. Obviously anyone would like to have Powell’s endorsement.”

Powell spokeswoman Peggy Cifrino strongly denied the report.

“There’s absolutely no truth to it whatsoever,” Cifrino told FOXNews.com. “Colin Powell will not be at either convention. There’s absolutely no truth to this.”

An endorsement by Powell could go a long way to attracting moderates and wayward Republicans to the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate.

Call me a skeptic at this point. Powell has never seemed particularly political, and I'm not sure he'd want to get in the middle of this fight. He's also held in pretty low esteem by the wacky anti-war left because of his presentation to the UN that got the ball rolling on the Iraq War. His endorsement might not seem like a plus to that crowd.

He's always seemed a little "squishy" to me, and tending toward liberal policies. I'm glad he didn't run for president as a Republican because he might have won and that's wouldn't have been a good thing for conservatives.