Posted on 01/18/2013 10:55:26 AM PST by pabianice
Like many, I was confused not by General Colin Powell’s endorsements of Barack Obama, but rather his recent remarks alleging Republican extremism and racism. His barrage was internally inconsistent and ultimately made little sense at all. Such unfounded charges are out of character with his distinguished record and career.
In 2008 and 2012 Republicans nominated candidates from the more moderate wing of the party. Mitt Romney had been a centrist Massachusetts governor, and fellow Republican senator John McCain, for example, whom Powell also did not endorse, in the 2000 primaries had run to the left of Powell’s own employer, George W. Bush. In fact, McCain ran a campaign which was certainly more centrist than those of Reagan and the elder Bush, both of whom were also Powell’s bosses. McCain’s advisers were moderates in comparison to a Lyn Nofzinger or a take-no-prisoners Lee Atwater. If the issue had been primarily moderation in the Republican party, then Powell quite logically could have seen in McCain a candidate more centrist than the three Republican presidents he once worked for.
While “shuck and jive” is a silly term to use — although liberals from current press secretary Tim Carney to Chris Mathews have felt no hesitation in employing it, and its origins and exact meaning are mired in controversy — it was Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo in 2008 (“You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference.”), not Sarah Palin, who was the first major political figure to use the phrase in criticism of Barack Obama — to the apparent silence of General Powell at the time.
Stereotyping, polarization, and racial insensitivity have been frequent in the last three years. Yet when one collates the explicit instances (e.g., “they cling to guns and religion,” “nation of cowards,” “punish our enemies,” “put y’all in chains,” etc.), Democrats seem at least as culpable as Republicans in their indiscretions. As far as direct slurs of African-Americans in the context of the Obama candidacy, there were two infamous instances — one a reported characterization of Barack Obama by Senator Harry Reid (“a light-skinned African American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one”), and another by Senator Joe Biden (“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”) — both insensitive stereotypes, as far as commensurate public commentary goes, ignored by Powell at the time. Were Cuomo, Biden, and Reid seen in 2008 as symptomatic of a darker liberal racism within the Democratic party?
As far as Powell’s oblique reference to Governor Sununu’s supposed racism for claiming Obama had been “lazy” in his preparation for the first presidential debate, the blunderbuss Sununu is known for just such off-the-cuff and blunt candor about everyone. Yet “lazy” is not quite Sununu’s alone: Barack Obama himself, in a moment of self-critique, earlier had used the same image to describe his own failings (e.g., “There is a deep down, underneath all the work I do, I think there’s a laziness in me”). I don’t think Obama saw any particular racial connotation in the epithet.
But more worrisome is the larger context of Powell’s remarks. If he is worried about uncivil speech, extremism, and a cruelty in the public arena, then he might have recalled that his own boss was the object of a mainstream novel imagining his assassination, of a prize-winning docudrama imagining his assassination, of a Guardian op-ed imagining his assassination, and of a New Republic essay entitled “Why I hate George W. Bush.” Those smears did not come from conservative critics, of whom there were many, and they did not prompt Powell’s commensurate outrage. But even stranger, Powell himself, as Brett Stephens recently pointed out, has allegedly said things that might be termed insensitive to Jews (e.g., “Gestapo office” and “card-carrying member of the Likud Party”) in the context of loose, political speech that is part of the Washington give-and-take.
Powell is an authentic American hero, who heretofore was honored by Republicans in three administrations with prestigious appointments, could have had their presidential nomination in 1996, and had been smeared only by those on the left (despicably, as a “house negro” from the likes of Al Sharpton and Harry Belafonte) — to the general silence of liberals. Nonetheless, his recent accusations are not factual, at least from the evidence he so far has cited. Perhaps they reflect a deeper anguish at former colleagues, and especially “neocons” (who once supposedly elicited from Powell the pejorative “f***ing crazies”) — all in the context of his tenure as secretary of state and his departure, and especially the unfortunate flawed presentation at the U.N. on WMD in Iraq and the disturbing silence about the role of his subordinate Richard Armitage in the Scooter Libby travesty. Certainly the controversies over those years have left their scars on both sides.
Colin Powell’s distinguished career rightly allows him to be influential in his political assessments and to speak candidly about whatever he sees as the truth — but his recent allegations are neither logical nor supported with evidence. And that’s simply a pity.
IIRC...he was in Reagan’s WH as some sort of aid as a Colonel.....not many years later, he was JCS....AA? You betcha!
He is a racist putz.
Powell has fallen into the divisive Obamanetrics of hate whitey.
Pity...
these military brass are political beings from the get go.....
And in 1988, '92, '96, 2000, and 2004 as well.
Mitt Romney had been a centrist Massachusetts governor
I would have expected better from Hanson. If he's taking Powell to task for bending the truth, writing that sentence should have made his keyboard burst into flames.
You fellas need to get the beam out of your own eye before you start picking at the speck in mine! If you knew who I was and my whole background, you can NOT call me a racist at all. Wouldn't stick. No one ever has. That's why some liberals REALLY hate me -- can't find something to criticize and at the last of my school teaching career just made up something that was a lie. My attorney made them unmake it up.
>> Like many, I was confused not by General Colin Powell’s endorsements of Barack Obama, but rather his recent remarks alleging Republican extremism and racism
Seriously, after the crap he pulled on Scooter Libby?
Armitage says he was foolish in CIA leak
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1924412/posts
funny how this race baiter said nothing when the left and the leftist media were doing the same things to Condi Rice he now falsely accuses the GOP of doing to obama...
He’s a milk turd.
He tried to be as white as possible going in, now he’s trying to be as brown as possible going out.
But in reality he’s become a stinky pile of off-color poop. /s
Yeah, I don’t understand why Hanson panders and calls that chump a hero. I’ve read his autobiography and it’s clear from his own words that he didn’t have all that much combat experience in Vietnam, and none after that. He got one decoration for bravery and that was for dragging people out of a helicopter crash he was in (nothing to be sneered at, but we’re not talking Audie Murphy either).
He was a staff puke most of his career and leveraged affirmative action as much as he could. He never particularly exhibited all that much talent from what I’ve read.
Powell never commanded a company in Vietnam and was never in harm’s way. He was a desk jockey. Each and every promotion after the rank of captain was due to affirmative action, all the way through his selection as Sec of State. All this courtesy of republicans, who he has never been one of. All the years he was taking from republicans he was a democrat. Finally he admits it with his pathetic endorsement of an unknown ward politician for president of the United States. The reason? Powell is as liberal as the day is long and Obama has the same skin tone. The man has no integrity whatsover. He’s a user. Nothing else.
During my Navy career it was my observation that half of COs were great people and great leaders, and the other half were useless “admiral’s boys” who got there via connections. It is also my observation about flag officers, many of whom I served with on their way up.
“these military brass are political beings from the get go.....”
powell was on the leading edge of the card players. Had he not played it, he would today be a retired Lt Col fishing on some bayou in Louisiana..
I graduated from high school with a guy who went on to graduate from the Naval Academy. He was a Top Gun pilot and flew the F-14. He retired with the rank of captain. I asked him why he did not become an admiral. His answer was “I did not want to kiss ass.”
Trivia bits about his military career.
1) As a major, Powell admitted that one of his jobs was to ‘whitewash’ the My Lai Massacre, which he admitted years later, and also said that much information about the event was never released to the public.
2) After a race riot when in Korea, where African American soldiers almost killed a Caucasian officer, Powell was charged by his commanding general with cracking down on black militants.
3) He became only the third general since World War II, along with Alexander Haig, to reach four-star rank without ever serving as a division commander. He did command V Corps in Germany, however.
Powell should be honored for his service. However, I see nothing truly "heroic" in his record.
Powell's actions and words, clearly show that he is a true enemy of our Constitution.
I despise anyone who seeks to destroy our Constitutional Republic.
Benedict Arnold.
So Colin Powell is showing his, er, true colors.
We sometimes explain a part of the Hollywood problem as average people who feel an unconscious guilt, for fame and fortune that far, far exceeds any rational balance of return, for their actual achievements and intellect, and efforts.
Powell shares some similarities to that, who knows how twisted up inside, this guy is. The GOP wanted to gift him the Presidency for crying out loud, he was the Obama, before Obama.
Powell pinned on his first star in '79. He put on his second about the same time he went to work with Weinberger.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Powell defender or apologist, but I'm no big fan of inaccurate information either.
Powell’s just as user with no character whatsoever. Didn’t he leave our troops stranded in a major battle? Was it Fallujah? And nobody criticized him because he was black.
Okay....just seemed to me he rose dramatically....my bad.
Powell has never done anything, except try to look cool. Probably he couldn’t hold in his ‘hating whitey’ anymore.
Mrs. Esopman
“His barrage was internally inconsistent and ultimately made little sense at all. Such unfounded charges are out of character with his distinguished record and career.”
It’s entirely in character. He’s an ‘affirmative’-action hire whose success was in being almost as good as what we would have had if the most qualified people regardless of race were promoted, even if that meant white men. And he knows it.
I think VDH was just "playing nice" when he referred to Powell as a "hero"; maybe to keep from being called a racist himself. when I think of Powell, I remember George H.W. Bush's account of the end of Operation Desert Storm. Bush said that as they had the Iraqis on the run back to Baghdad, that Powell came running in and asked "Mr. President, can we stop the killing now!?".
So, there is Powell's great accomplishment. He helped end Desert Storm before it was finished, thereby making the Iraq War under W a necessity. Elevate a general via affirmative action, and you get an affirmative action war as a result. What a putz.
I can’t help the comparison of Powell and Rice. When Powell was accused of going to the UN with lies, he did nothing to refute the Marxist democrats lies. He never stood up and got in their face for the demagoguery. Instead he kept trying to distance himself from the party he claimed while making rank and career. Condi Rice got up and stood in their faces and dismissed their lies instead of cowering in fear of some political rhetoric. As I said before, Powell is a user and a man of no character.
The affirmative action general can’t get past color. Actually affirmative action was originally meant for Afro-Americans who were descendants of American slaves. Mr. Powell traces his ancestry to the islands and not to American slaves.
You got that exactly right...
30years of service and knew a lot of these guys. ..could even name names....including Mullin...
VDH hopefully is actually aware that the black bigots like Powell are racist haters of all whites. But of course like 90% of Professors he thinks that every body is the same.
“You can either be somebody, or do something.” John Boyd
Someone give me a hanky...boo hoo hoo hoo....Life as we know it just can’t go on. The horror, the horror! Powell is seen without the blinders.
>List the distinguished things that Powell has done in his career.<
.
Uh, uh, uh, he has a chestful of medals. He must’ve done something of value.
“In addition he was decorated for bravery for his actions in a helicopter crash that he survived - which included him rescuing three others as well, including his division commander”
He does not have “V” device on any decoration. Which means none of them involved combat. He assisted others in pulling three men out of the burning chopper. The chopper was not involved in combat operations. For this he received the Soldier’s Medal, awarded for non-combat actions The Bronze Star again was for non-combat service. In otherwords he got it for a staff job. The Purple Heart was for stepping on a punji stick. He used this injury to pull a John Kerry and leave RVN early. Why a PH was ever awarded for stepping on a feces smeared stick, I could never figure out. Now if Charlie is running at you with a shyt smeared stick and you get poked, that’s that’s another story. Powell, without a doubt, is the only officer that served in Vietnam, who never commanded men in battle, but ended up never missing a promotion and ended up retiring as a full general, and then Chairman, JCS. Can you say affirmative action? Where was the command experience for him to be promoted as fast as he was. It does not exist.
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