(The rest of the article is a very interesting explication of Colin Agonistes, centering around the construction of his (in)famous UN speech, turds served and dined upon…)
Fired him. Closest thing to a sane person in the whole menagerie. Because he didn’t get along with Rummy and Cheney. Its like that Mark Chapman idiot, who had a gun on John and Yoko, and shot John.
Is this finally it, Mr. Powell? Has it finally sunk in that loyalty is commendable only when deserved? How is it that you consented to pimp for these people and offered them invaluable support while they misled us into a feverswamp? With the abundance of evidence on open display, how is it that you didn’t know? What, Sudden Onset Alzheimer’s? Turned into a dumfuk in a matter of hours?
They exploited your dignity and good name, and the naive trust placed in you. A wad of toilet paper gets more respectful use and dignified retirement.
You owe these people nothing. You owe us a great deal, a very great deal indeed.
You know, I hate, hate, hate to use the phrase, but I confess that after I heard the UN presentation, I composed the sentence: “Yep, the Bush administration just burnt up its best n*****.”
I apologise for any offense, but that seemed pretty clearly to be the attitude. Needed someone with street-cred. Haul in loyal boy, who’d cry “yes massa, w’ever you say massa, I’ll tell 'em folks at the UN.” Burn up the one commodity he had.
There was always a real: “you can trust a black man” thing going on in contemporary USA. At least that’s over.
To the OP, Colin Powell had leaked it well before the first term’s expiry that he didn’t intend to serve a second. So with respect to friend elucidator, I think you’ve got it wrong.
Should be able to find a discussion or two, perhaps even here to back that up. I remember it clearly.
Remember that Colin Powell was the Army Major who first ‘investigated’ the Mai Lai massacre, and covered it up. This ‘team player’ mentality aided in his later promotions.
Colin Powell’s mistake was to assume his role was to offer his best advice even if it differed from what people wanted to hear. The Bush administration is apparently incapable of realizing the value of informed dissent. Their apparent theory is “We’re right and everybody else is wrong. So why should we have any wrong people around when we could have all right people around instead?” It’s a defendable position, I suppose, but only if you accept the premise that the group opinion will never make a single mistake.
Look back to the way John Kennedy handled the Cuban missile crisis. He brought in a team of experts with widely divergent opinions. Then they discussed the options, he listened to same widely different ideas on what should be done, and then he decided what course he wanted to follow. He realized that hearing alternatives was not some admission of ineptitude - he clearly retained his role as the “decider” but he was making real decisons between real choices not just listening to echoes and then adding his own.
BTW, if Colin Powell had a shred of decency, or a drop of honor in his blood. He would indeed “fall on his sword” and not in any mealy or metaphoric sense.
How far that same duty of honor may rest is a matter open to debate.
Little Nemo I agree, they’ll be no reveal from CP. He’ll not use what little he has left for any remedial purpose.
No, Powell would have wiped the floor with Bush and McCain (and Gore) if he had wanted to be president. He didn’t want to be prez, and the rest is history.
I’ve never understoond Powell’s credibility. During the Clinton years, when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he famously blocked attempts to intervene in the Balkans. He famously kept a picture of a Serbian SAM site in his office and lectured Senators and Congresspeople on the dangers of intervening. Then, he famously wrote an op-ed piece in the NY Times opposing intervention while still in office. As mentioned above, he led a less than vigorous investigation into the My Lai masacre.
He attempted to block the Clinton interventions in the Balkans which has largely been successful and established a post-cold war US as a global hegemon. He also helped sell the invasion of Iraq which has undone all the work of the Clinto administration and has probably sown the seeds of destruction for the United States and will likely destabilize the entire Middle East and thus disrupt the global economy.
Well, I can’t speak for the entire GOP, but I’m a Republican and I would certainly vote for a black man (or woman, for that matter) for president.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed that the greatest real progress (as opposed to appointments made for show and often given to totally unqualified and/or inept people just for the sake of appearing to promote minorities and women – i.e., Joycelyn Elders and Janet Reno, just to name two) and the most substantive government positions acheived by minorities and women in this country have actually come from Republican administrations? Do the names Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice and Alberto Gonzales ring any bells?
Of course, these are conservative women, blacks, and Hispanics so they won’t count for much around here…but the fact remains that women and minorities fare better under Republican administrations, and they can deliver the goods.
Oh, hell, yes, Starkers! If only we weren’t so blinded by our hatred for The Leader, we might be able to speak honestly about such wonders as these. Clarence! Who can say enough about Clarence! Even as we speak, learned men whisper in law libraries in tones of awe and admiration of his acute perception and vast legal scholarship, and how he can speak while Scalia drinks a glass of water, it is the miracle of the age!
And Condoleeza! Where would we be without her guidance and intelligence? Where, indeed! Why, without her, our splendid military adventure in Iraq might not have been so marvelously realized. Or even, God forbid, not realized at all! Then where would we be, I ask you? You think quagmires grow on trees? She is an inspiration to little gap toothed lesbians everywhere!
And Gonzales! A giant of jurisprudence! What other man would have as expansive a vision that he has shown us, the previously unrealized power of the signing statement, how efficiently it distills three branches of government into the only one that is, really, worth having!
You see, its not so much that they are conservative that rouses our ire. Its that everything they touch turns to shit that bugs us. However marvelous a truly spectacular display of galactic incompetence may be, the wonderment pales, and we want some variety.