Colin Powell on Obama and Jeremiah Wright
Powell gave an interview to Good Morning America.
Here's the money section:
Returning to presidential politics, Powell condemned controversial remarks by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor of 20 years, as "deplorable" but complimented the Democratic candidate for his speech on race that followed in the aftermath.
"Rev. Wright is also somebody who has made enormous contributions in his community and has turned a lot of lives around," Powell said, "And so, I have to put that in context with these very offensive comments that he made, which I reject out of hand."
Powell added that he does not know Wright, and praised Obama's response.
"I think that Sen. Obama handled the issue well . . . he didn't look the other way. He didn't wait for the, for the, you know, for the storm to go over. He went on television, and I thought, gave a very, very thoughtful, direct speech. And he didn't abandon the minister who brought him closer to his faith," Powell told Sawyer.
Powell, who has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate in almost every election since he retired from military service and public life, expressed admiration for Obama.
"It was a good (speech)," Powell said. "I admired him for giving it. And I agreed with much of what he said."
The rest of the interview,which can be found here, talks about Iraq, Afghanistan, The Possible Olympic Boycott.
In the annals of ' What Ifs', one of my consistent ' What Ifs' goes like this:
WHAT IF Colin Powell had resigned, instead of gone up to the U.N. to lie for Bush? I know a lot of y'all will never forgive him for it, and I understand that, but even now....my head tells me one thing, but my heart...still has a soft spot for Powell.
Topics:
2008 Presidential Race,
Colin Powell
69 comments:
Whenever you feel that soft spot for old Colin Powell, here's a lil sumpm' to remember. When Powell was 31 years old he was Maj. Powell, in the army serving in Vietnam. He was assigned to investigate whether a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by US troops took place at an obscure village named My Lai.
By many accounts there were hundreds of massacres during the US war in Indochina, but for a single incident My Lai was one of the bigger ones, and the only ones where Americans were actually prosecuted and convicted.
Colin Powell weighed the evidence, read the reports and did whatever it is investigators do. Then he told the higher ups that nothing happened. Nothing. No harm, no foul, no three to seven hundred dead women and children. Powell did not just participate in the cover-up. He played a lead role in it. Of course if he hadn't that would have been the end of his career. The US military is nothing if not an utterly unforgiving bureaucracy, and ratting out other officers is seriously frowned upon. So his going along with Bush to lie to us and get a much larger number of folks killed was no aberration, no one-time thing. It was his career pattern, and that of almost every military officer.
@ bruce dixon wrote, It was his career pattern, and that of almost every military officer.
then is your real beef with Powell; or with the military, and military culture, in general?
What Bruce said. I quit ROTC when I got the scope of what went on at My Lai and gave up plans for military career I'd had since I was 10. When I found out the scoop on Powell in covering it up, I put him down as a ticket puncher and moved on. Bruce has the facts about right. You don't want generals anywhere near politics. That's why Obama's so great, nothing military about him. Time to get a new bag and close down the garrison state.
Although I'll never forget that General Powell has been a "good soldier" to a fault, I have forgiven him for it. I've forgiven him because I sense--through many of his interviews since leaving the Bush admininstration--that he's learned that being a "good soldier" can have severe consequences for a nation.
That said, I think he's done with politics, and is very much enjoying the consulting gig.
I always wondered what would've happened if GEN Powell had run for the presidency in '00, or if he did so today.
History will remember Powell, like Ronnie said, as a man who exemplified the values of loyalty and honor. The "blot" that some would put on his record from the UN speech will-and is beginning to-fade over time.
I am sure that Powell's interview has the media scrambling to look up the meaning of the word "context", since its a term they are totally unfamiliar with.
LOL @ kat-"context"
I too have a soft spot for Powell and know of all his dirt. I think it's a case of "when you know better, you do better". I think he was in the system for years and his conscience caught up to him.
"What If?" indeedy.
No matter how honorable, or noble we may think Colin Powell is, the bottom line for me is when he had the opportunity to stand for honor and nobility, he folded and compromised. Not to mention he threw in his lot with the most contemptable and corrupted Presidential Administration since Richard Milhous Nixon and Ronald Wilson Reagan combined.
But we're supposed to give him credit because the stench of foul activities got to him and he was pretty much forced out?
I would have had more respect for him if he went out like Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill did. And O'Neill was a very wealthy corporate guy who thought he was serving his country when he agreed to take the position as Treasury Secretary, only to be handed his ass and fired when he refused to go along with Bush ripping off the country and using Treasury as a money printing press.
So, I think he's (Powell) the last person to be in a position to criticize the preaching philosophy of Jeremiah Wright. The positive that comes out of the whole saga is that Whites got those YouTube clips of Wright's sermons in full and listened to what he had to say, by which they wound up agreeing with most of what he was teaching.
And we have not seen Rev. Wright back down, retract, or try to sugar-coat what he said. He's sticking by his principles, his Christian faith and beliefs from which those principles came, and to me, he's in a far better position of nobility and honor than Colin Powell can ever dream of, or Barack Obama could ever contemplate.
Powell's acceptability is cloaked in his military uniform. I consider him a good soldier who did as he was ordered, but as my collegue, Bruce Dixon, pointed out, when he had the opportunity to give orders, he gave them in My Lai based on what he was being ordered to do by the SecDef, even though it was WRONG.
A person of principles, moral character, honor and nobility, will do what follows those characteristics, even if he find himself standing alone. He can sleep at night knowing he did what was right.
What's lost about GEN Powell-especially among those who have never worn the uniform-is that the nature of his business prevented him from criticism on Iraq once the final decision was made. Powell did caution President Bush against going into Iraq; however, once that course was set, it was his job to support it.
I'm not going to attempt to speak intelligently about Mai Lai, but it seems to be the same sort of situation.
Powell's roles in the government-from National Security Advisor to Secretary of State-gave him ample room to warn against a particular course of action, which by all accounts, he did.
Placing the mission first, at whatever cost to your life or personal standing-as stated in the Army's Soldier's Creed-is the truest nobility.
"What's lost about GEN Powell-especially among those who have never worn the uniform-is that the nature of his business prevented him from criticism on Iraq once the final decision was made. Powell did caution President Bush against going into Iraq; however, once that course was set, it was his job to support it."
-If he felt so strongly that Iraq was wrong (and I don't think he did), he could have resigned.
He didn't.
He went along with the program.
Fuck him.
Obama would be wise to offer a position to Colin Powell in his administration, while I don’t see him running as VP, but Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense would provide Powell another shot at restoring his tarnished legacy concerning Iraq.
Powell, who is a Republican, would provide some credence to Obama's change and unity mantra.
"In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News."
"The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said."
"Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding."
"The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic."
"The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy."
"At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft."
-ABC News, April 9, 2008
"Obama would be wise to offer a position to Colin Powell in his administration, while I don’t see him running as VP, but Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense would provide Powell another shot at restoring his tarnished legacy concerning Iraq."
-If he does that, Obama is a damned fool.
If Obama is in the tarnished legacy business, he might as well have Hillary as his VP, too!
Obama does not need Powell's baggage (you are against the Iraq War, but you're hiring one of the architects of the Iraq War?
Brilliant! [snark])
You are missing the point, Powell is WELL respected in the Global arena and would provide and instant boost to Obama's foreign policy.
Whatever his "baggage" as you say, will be minimal compared to what he brings to the table. His semi- endorsement is already having the desired effect..instead of talking about Wright, we are debating Powell.
Imagine this scenario, Obama locks up the nomination in June, and quickly announces the following:
Sen. Chuck Hagel as VP and Colin Powell as Secretary of Defense.
More importantly in that interview:
Powell said that the next president will face limitations on bringing troops home, as Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton — rivals for the Democratic nomination — have promised to do.
"They will have to continue to draw down at some pace," he said. "None of them are going to have the flexibility of just saying we're out of here, turn off the switch, turn off the lights, we're leaving. They will have a situation before them."
At some point before the convention or after he is nominated, Obama will have to face reality and alter his stance on the war.
Is Powell paving the way for Obama to move to the center on the war?