Obama Backed By Colin Powell

[Odysseus]

I still believe Powell saw this administration had no clue...especially after it hung him out in the wind at the UN with the WMD malarky.

No, he saw that it had no future. The bad press was taking hold and the public's confidence was dropping. He saw an exit strategy and took it.

Maybe. But I see the total disrespect by Bush’s staff way prior to that time. "W" lives for complete ass-kissers (reference Condi for the gold standard there) and Powell had his own opinions (reference not going into Baghdad in Bush41’s war).

Did it ever occur to you that it went both ways? That using the press to dispatch your opponents and undermine your boss' policies through leaking isn't exactly an honorable way to do your job?

Actually, it don't change my opinion of Obama or Powell in the least. They are both the same men they were this time last month.

Exactly. It's the left that's suddenly finding itself full of praise for someone that they used to dismiss with the vilest of racial terms.

[Rebel Yell]

Exactly. It's the left that's suddenly finding itself full of praise for someone that they used to dismiss with the vilest of racial terms.

I've always looked at Powell as a very qualified independent.

[LogansPapa]

Did it ever occur to you that it went both ways? That using the press to dispatch your opponents and undermine your boss' policies through leaking isn't exactly an honorable way to do your job?

Nice claim - any proof?

[Odysseus]

Nice claim - any proof?

Of course. The most obvious example of a State Dept. leak that caused the administration grief was the Valerie Plame affair. Mind you, Plame was not an operative and the leak to Michael Novak did no damage to national security, but Democrats (who had no problem with leaks that really did compromise national security, such as the NSA intercept program or the SWIFT program that tracked terrorists' financial transactions) seized on it as an opportunity to drag the administration through all manner of grief. At that time, President Bush had ordered all executive branch employees to cooperate with the probes, but not all did. We now know that Richard Armitage was the source of the leak, but what most people don't realize is that Armitage worked for Powell, and that he had informed Powell of the leak in October 2003. Powell not only knew who the source for the leak was, but kept it to himself as Scooter Libby was dragged through the courts.

[Molon Labe]

No, he saw that it had no future. The bad press was taking hold and the public's confidence was dropping. He saw an exit strategy and took it.

And did it ever occur to you that you tend to see peoples motivations as one of only what's in it politically for them. It's like you believe that every choice is based on something out of Michael Lerner's politics of meaning crap.
Contrary to your statement, there are some that still base decisions on principles. I know from what Powell has confided that he felt completely betrayed as a pony boy during the lead up to the war with Iraq. When what we were looking for turned out completely different from what was found, he was the one that looked the ass.
I'll bet Powell's decision to endorse Obama has more to do with what I said than a decison to hedge his bets for a political future. You don't see him out on the lecture trail trying to sell you his political virtues. He's a pretty benign individual politically since leaving the administration compared to most political hound dogs.

[LogansPapa]

Of course.

Quite coherent and well thought out opinion. Again - any proof / links for this perspective?

[Odysseus]

And did it ever occur to you that you tend to see peoples motivations as one of only what's in it politically for them. It's like you believe that every choice is based on something out of Michael Lerner's politics of meaning crap.
Contrary to your statement, there are some that still base decisions on principles. I know from what Powell has confided that he felt completely betrayed as a pony boy during the lead up to the war with Iraq. When what we were looking for turned out completely different from what was found, he was the one that looked the ass.
I'll bet Powell's decision to endorse Obama has more to do with what I said than a decison to hedge his bets for a political future. You don't see him out on the lecture trail trying to sell you his political virtues. He's a pretty benign individual politically since leaving the administration compared to most political hound dogs.

No, Michael Lerner is just liberal pap. I prefer Nicolo Machiavelli, who understood people a lot better than most modern commentators.
People usually act out of what they perceive their interests to be, and then come up with justifications for their actions. In the case of my assessment of Powell, I'm looking at a career spent using the media through leaking (which, BTW, is SOP for Washington types, as it's a great way to cut the legs out from under an oppontent without getting splashed with the blood). As for jumping to the winning side, this isn't anything new for him, and it was expected in a lot of quarters. If he'd really believed that Obama was the better candidate, he'd have found a way to articulate it in terms of his own experiences and background. Instead, Powell's endorsement of Obama is a litany of DNC talking points, without any embellishment by him. That tells me that he was working from the campaign's script.

Quite coherent and well thought out opinion. Again - any proof / links for this perspective?

Well, the fact that Armitage was Powell's subordinate is easy enough to check out, it's part of his Wikipedia bio, as are the facts of his having leaked Plame's name to Novak. He also tendered his resignation the day after Powell submitted his, which shows that he followed Powell out the door. As for Powell's knowledge of the leak, that was confirmed by several sources, who claimed that he had been told by Armitage in 2003 that he was the source, the most prominent being the book, Hubris, by David Corn and Michael Isikoff. Any other questions?

[LogansPapa]

As for Powell's knowledge of the leak, that was confirmed by several sources, who claimed that he had been told by Armitage in 2003 that he was the source, the most prominent being the book, Hubris, by David Corn and Michael Isikoff. Any other questions?

Ah, a book. Like one written by one of "W’s" formerly loyal Press Secretaries? Weak - at best.

[lacarnut]

Ah, a book. Like one written by one of "W’s" formerly loyal Press Secretaries? Weak - at best.

Wrong because David Corn is a liberal journalist and co-authored this book. Try again. You missed Sherlock.

[Odysseus]

Ah, a book. Like one written by one of "W’s" formerly loyal Press Secretaries? Weak - at best.

The book was one of several sources, but okay, if you insist:

Newsweek:
The next day, a team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors investigating the leak questioned the deputy secretary. Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA... [William Howard Taft IV, the State Department's legal adviser] felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source — possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more. Armitage's role thus remained that rarest of Washington phenomena: a hot secret that never leaked.

BTW, I love how Newsweek excuses Powell's protecting his subornate, who leaked the information in the first place, by saying that he was afraid of a leak! Gotta love that MSM. Meanwhile, you have the State Department withholding critical information from the Justice Department, in violation of a Presidential order. Need any more corroboration?

Oh, and will you be this skeptical when Powell is appointed to a cabinet post by Obama and we argue that a deal was done?