Monday, October 20, 2008

Colin Powell endorses Obama

6 comments:

Michael J Mahoney said...

Is anybody really surprised by this? I think every other former SecState has endorsed McCain. And by "other" I mean "everyone that McCain didn't have on the short list for VP and then passed over." Bitter, anyone?

roy said...

Is Powell bitter? Got me. Does that disqualify what he had to say? I don't think so. Did you listen to him Michael? It seems like his reasoning is pretty solid.

Anonymous said...

Bitter? Really? He sure doesn't sound bitter.

Michael J Mahoney said...

Powell is a consummate statesman,(perhaps one of the last truly great ones) and part of that statesmanship is keeping one's cards close to the vest.

I don't discount what he says at all. His reasoning seems well thought out. I don't agree with all of it, but he obviously knows what he's talking about. No one can dispute that.

I do not know if he is bitter at having been passed over, and I would not expect to be able to tell if he was. However, he has indicated in other interviews an anger at not being taken seriously by the Republican party, and he clearly has reason to be bitter if he chose to. For that reason, his endorsement should not be dismissed, but should be taken with a grain of salt. And although I dislike mentioning it, the racial issue cannot reasonably be ignored, either.

Robert Cornwall said...

I think it's inappropriate to say that McCain has all the other former Secretary of States. He has 4 Republicans backing him. Obama has the backing of those who served in Democratic Administrations. But those are much fewer in number, because the Dems have been out of the White House for much of the past 30 years.

What is important to note is that Colin Powell has been a Republican. I don't think he was passed over for the VP slot, I don't think he had any interest in it. Note also that at 71 he didn't fill McCain's need for a younger person.

Anonymous said...

The potential to be bitter is an argument for treating someone's views as sceptical. Cool, I'll remember that when I don't have any substantative reason to reject and opinion I don't like.

Powell is clearly worked up about his party and his experience is the fuel for that. It's not just evident here, but in everything I've seen and read about him over the last few years.

Of course, there is always the possibility that, just maybe, he is right - or at least that he has a substantial point. This morning I was reading a piece in the local paper from a writer who consistently leans right and is a fan of both Reagan and Bush Sr with a differently emphasised but similar argument to Powell's about the slide in the Republican party. He was calling for a leader with a truly reforming vision (a Tony Blair type) to emerge. I suspect that if McCain does lose, there will be a *lot* of respected conservative voices coming out and questioning the direction the party has taken - both the general shift right over the last 40 years and the dramatic changes over the last 8