To me, Powell requires very little rehabilitation. I know that a lot of people put Powell into the category of war enablers. But I like to believe that he did what he thought was best for the country. He saw all the true believers running around the white house and felt he couldn’t just abandon the ship so he stuck around trying to mitigate damage. I think he made the case to the U.N in a last desperate attempt to get international support for the invasion.
He left the administration before things got really ugly and it was mostly over his disagreement on Iraq. If he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President, would he have a chance or has he been forever tainted by his speech at the U.N.?
And that is why he deserves his shame. I know the argument is that a soldier must follow orders. But he was in a position to voice his conscience and really do something good for the country. I would have voted for him for President before the feces hit the rotating oscillator. If he had resigned and publicly stated his opposition to the direction the President was heading, I would have more respect for him.
If this isn’t too much of a hijack, would it have been a brilliant political move (as well as a highly moral move, and a noble one) if Powell had roundly and publicly denounced the Bush agenda, and resigned his office, instead of making that speech to the UN? Would he have been electable at this point? Would he be unbeatable? (in my scenario, I imagine he’s been ‘no commenting’ the whole while, as each Party begs him to run under its banner.)
I think public resignations are very much under-rated.
Because he’s intelligent, articulate, and generally independent in his opinions. But he got in bed with the wrong slut, and now he has a raging case of political herpes. Like Robert McNamara, he’ll always be remembered more for the things he screwed up than then things he did right, and he’s tainted by association. Arguing that he did it out of the best of intentions–which I personally think he did–doesn’t change the fact that he presented a completely bogus rationalization for the subsequent invasion of Iraq.
Too bad; I otherwise respect the guy and think he could have made a credible, Eisenhower-esque candidate for a socially-moderate, fiscally-conservative Republican President. He’s essentially unelectable now, and is hardly trustworthy even if he weren’t.
Could he be rehabilitated? Could he make a run for President? It is possible but he would have a long way to go. Powell could possibly be a VP candidate with a McCain, a Rudy, or a Hagel and from there, in eight years make a go of it. But he’d be a longshot. Never a darling of those must brown-nose to if you want the nomination religious rightists, and of diminished credibility to everyone else. His chance came and he declined to run … didn’t have the fire in his belly for it I think he said. I see no reason to believe that he’d want the job more now that he’d be less likely able to get it.
In my opinion, Powell did with his speech at the UN was in keeping with his pattern of behavior. In Vietnam, he was responsible for investigating accusations of attrocities committed by US troops (the My Lai masacre). Powell’s investigation found, “in direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.”
While serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he wrote an op-ed piece in the NY Times opposing incoming president Clinton’s plan to intervene in Bosnia, which effectively delayed US involvement in the Balkan wars. He famously kept a picture of a Serbian SAM site in his office and showed it to visiting lawmakers as he lectured them on the dangers of US involvement in the Balkans. Clinton once said he’d like to use US troops to stop the slaughter but, “Powell won’t let us.”
Given that one has to judge the US interventions in Kosovo and Bosnia as very successful and America’s experience in Iraq as a failure (take it from someone who was in Kosovo and is now in Iraq), Powell has clearly come down on the wrong side of hisotry three times. Can Powell redeem himself? I say, he was never worth a damn.
What really disgusted me (not about Powell himself, but about our country and society) in the early '90s was that people were touting Powell as a potential presidential candidate, based on his war-hero status, even though nobody seemed to have any idea of the content of his politics. You know, politics? What the whole thing is supposed to be about?! It’s much more important than, say, personal moral character. It is better to be well-governed by sinners than misgoverned by saints.
It’s pretty standard to want to run a war hero, though I agree it’s not bright. While our best president ever was one, and Roosevelt wasn’t half bad, most have run the gamut of mediocre to downright horrible. Problem is, they get elected.
Y’know, Grant has been maligned for showing too much loyalty to his friends, who are the ones who did the stealing. If he had friends like Cheney we’d still think of him as a…uh…an adequate president. He comes off well on Wild, Wild West.
Powell was Bush’s field hand, and as soon as he outlived his usefulness to 'shrub he was cut loose.
Powell could have stopped this damn fool war but he enabled it instead.
Remember that UN presentation, where he showed inspectors driving up to the front gate of a military complex as the WMD went out the back…complete fiction. Either he was duped, in which case he shouldn’t be allowed to have a credit card much less be President, or he was in on it from the get go and still shouldn’t be President.
Also, you remember his son Michael Powell? Chairman of the FCC via Presidential appointment? Obstensibly on his merits ya think? Most famous for the Janet Jackson Nipplegate superbowl brouhaha. His appointment has thankfully expired although not so sure about freedom of speech. The son ain’t the father, but it’s painfully obvious Michael Powell got the job on daddy’s coattails, and that’s another strike.
