Well, many folks predicted it, but now it’s official. Not too surprising, since Powell’s foreign policy recommendations and stances are pretty much in sync with Obama’s.
Colin Powell endorses Obama
Published: October 19, 2008Posted in: Features
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Gen Powell has long been one of my heros. His reasoning and thoughtful logic reflect many of my own considerations.
I recommend viewing the actual endorsement in its entirety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efv3Vr8T9MA
“I can’t deny that it will be a historic event when an African-American becomes president,” Powell continued, speaking live in the studio. “And should that happen, all Americans should be proud — not just African-American, but all Americans — that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It would also not only electrify the country, but electrify the world.”
So, if Obama what white, it would be McCain for President?
You live up to your divisive anti-American tactics brian by once again resorting to racism.
You should be ashamed, but your sense takes a back seat to your obedience to the GOP.
By the other 95% of what he said in his endorsement, no.
But thanks for giving me something to bookmark and reflect on the next time you proclaim that liberals see racism in every slight.
Uh…Brian…Obama is half White.
Mark, how is quoting Colin Powell racist?
What was the Powell quote you’re referring to, BK? I saw what you said and it had nothing to do with what General Powell said. In fact, he expressly rejected the idea that his endorsement was based on race. Anyone who has worked with Colin Powell or who has served under him knows that this man is color blind when sizing up the merits of others. It was your comment, Brian, that posed the idea that the endorsement was based on race.
I see. When Powell calls Obama an “African-American,” he must not have meant race.
I understand so clearly now. Calling someone by his race has nothing to do with race. I got it.
It is no surprise to me that Colin Powell endorsed Obama. However the endorsement by someone who I so much respect adds validity to my own vote. Too bad I can’t cast my ballot for Colin!
B – when you take the quote completely out of context to state exactly the opposite of what he said during the entirety of his 30 minutes on meet the press – and more importantly when it is taken out of context of what his life has stood for.
I reiterate my earlier statement. You should be ashamed to trash Gen Powell in this manner. It’s insulting, it’s un-American and it is racist.
Mark, when Powell says its not about race, and then goes on and on about how Obama’s being an African-American President would “electrify the world” because it would “show that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen,” what do you think he’s talking about? Obama’s height?
There’s a saying in contract law “when they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”
Powell said its not about race, and then talked about race.
I noticed it and commented. You got insulted. Have fun being insulted.
You call me “un-American” – the same term you likely squealed about if anyone called someone on the left the same thing.
And you call me a racist. Powell talked about electrifying the world simply because of Obama’s race, not me.
I oppose Obama because of his stands on issues. Remember issues – those things Powell didn’t talk about in his statement?
You’re the one resorting to namecalling and attacks.
Brian, so in your mind, to merely speak about race is to endorse because of it?
That doesn’t make a lot of sense does it? Yet that’s exactly what you’re advocating.
See, here’s where you, Limbaugh, and even George Will allow your own prejudices to end in error. It is possible to endorse a candidate that shares your own race even without that race being the decisive factor. How? By doing what Powell did today, that is to say, actually offering substantive reasons.
Powell’s endorsement would have been racially based if he had instead said something along the lines of, “I support Obama because he’s black”. But Powell didn’t say that, and he’s not incorrect for pointing out the historical relevance for our nation’s history of Obama’s candidacy and possible election.
For you to dismiss the relevance of his comments because you count your beliefs to trump a man’s statements in his own words is rather audacious… but I’m starting to understand why you think you know God’s political intentions.
I view the endorsement of Barack obama by Colin Powell as a betrayal by a man I served under and viewed as my hero. We fought wars to keep the
kind of government that Obama will lead us to. His people are cheating to win by ballot fraud in huge numbers in over a dozen states. They are supressing freedom of speech and of the press for those who disagree.
T.V stations radio and papers have been threatened with loss of licenses.
For what running ads about How Obama really feels about gun owners rights. The NRA was threatened too. People have been arrested in Missouri under an archic ethics law for speaking out. Our rights are under fire folks, wake up. He who controls the press controls a nation. The words of Joseph Goebbels. Hitlers propaganda minister. They rose to power with a populist message , an us against them platform and we’ll give you everything mesage. Sound familiar? They had the media locked up and goebbels other fav. phrase was “If you tell the lie long enough,
people will believe it! When they achieved power the first thing they did was take everyones guns. General Powell should now better. We had several
shooting wars and a 40+ ” year cold war to keep this from our shores.
So now we are going to elect it instead? My family bled in two world wars,
Korea ,Viet Nam and every conflict since. If we elect this poser then we have turned our backs on the sacrifices of my family and millions of others, including Yours. Think America when you vote. After all by his own
words Barack is a citizen of the world , so kiss America as you know it goodbye. Thank you General Powell for destroying my belief that you
put America first in everything you do. In your heart of hearts you know better. Don’t you feel cheap being an October Surprise against your fellow
Viet Vet John McCain. I never thought you would be a part of something so tawdry. I fell ashamed for you.
By Jove, you’re right! That does sound familiar.
Yep, sounds like the Bush administration!
B – your justifications are empty and devoid of logic.
Ed – you need to let go of the fear and propaganda McCain and Palin are selling you.
I thought I/we served our nation in our armed forces to defend our democracy and our Constitutional right to vote (or at least for the electors to vote) for the President of our choice. As a veteran I am proud to join Gen Powell in voting for the candidate who has demonstrated the intelligence, thoughfulness, understanding, judgement, consistency and patriotism to lead our nation, Sen. Obama. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same way, but please do not use the kind of sickening fear mongering, scare tactics and propaganda we’ve seen by the GOP in the past two elections to demean our democratic process.
Yawn. It’s blinding partisanship of folks like you thank make me hate October.
Wow, looks like BD has finally given up on being a GOP forum. Equal opportunity bashing all around. But Ed does have an interesting view. Brian, you are a political insider. Exactly how does a Presidential candidate prove he is eligible to run for office. Do McCain and Obama trudge through each state with documents in hand? Or does part of the filing process entail reporting to ICE, just to make sure? We hear that McCain was born in the Canal Zone. Don’t remember that being a state. Who was that supreme authority that granted him status as a born and bred American?
So Brian claims “blind partisanship” when opinions offered disagree with him. This must mean because all of his opinions are that of the GOP platform, therefore anything contrary to him is contrary to the GOP…. but wait… hey, isn’t that in itself, “blind partisanship” ?
It’s ok to hop off the carousel every once in awhile to get your own bearings, Brian. I think even the GOP would forgive you for that.
Ed, your comments are so full of fear there’s no way to logically address them. I don’t see you rendering any judgement on the present Bush administration with suspension of habeas corpus? How they’ve allowed themselves to listen in on your phone conversations without warrant? How more of our individual rights and even the viability of the Constitution has been shredded just a little? No problems with that? If your comment is out of concern because Obama is a socialist well that’d be true.. but at least afford the man the respect of being not only an elected Senator of the state of Illinois but also a nominated candidate by his party for President of the United States. Which, by the way, by that same pesky Constitution, he’s satisfied the criteria to run for the office.
Yes, Shane. In fact, I wrote the GOP platform, didn’t you know? I’m on a conference call every morning at 6 am to make sure everyone agrees with me.
In fact, the guy I wanted to run for President decided not to. So much for my following the talking points.
So that’s an interesting question Brian, who did you want to see run for office?
Actually, the Senate did, just to remove any doubt.
S.RES.511
Title: A resolution recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.
Sponsors:
Sen. Claire McCaskill [D, MO]
Sen. Hillary Clinton [D, NY]
Sen. Thomas Coburn [R, OK]
Sen. Patrick Leahy [D, VT]
Sen. Barack Obama [D, IL]
Sen. Jim Webb [D, VA]
I can’t believe that it’s been a little over 24 hours and VA GOPers are really showing their stripes. Line up behind Limbaugh and Will, and yet offer NOTHING of any substance to account for this TOTAL LOSS of one of our true heroes.
I’m at a loss of words for what this does to our party, and can’t believe you guys are making these completely idiotic remarks.
I can’t believe that some of you guys would ever resort to race because of this endorsement. I thought that the GOP would never stoop to this level and am ashamed that some of you call yourselves conservatives.
Did any of you actually listen to the endorsement? Did you hear what he had to say about the crisis, the issues, the negative campaigning?
If all the GOP has left is base attacks that involve race, I’m never voting red again.
Brian,
You might not have written the GOP platform, but you support it. Let’s hear you object to even one plank in the platform.
Of course if you do object it will be because the plank was not conservative enough, right?
Little David, ask some conservatives who think i’m so non-conservative that they call me a Democrat.
Have you even read the GOP platform?
I think the GOP platform on education is wrong on a number of points. It’s not that it’s not conservative enough. It’s that it doesn’t address what education needs to be in this century. The Democrats don’t either.
I also have no idea why the GOP has a platform position on internet gambling.
Also, I think the GOP position on the nation’s infrastructure leaves much to be desired. Happy?
Shane, Newt.
Brian,
Please expound upon your ideas about education. I’d love to hear about it.
some of them are in this thread of comments
http://bearingdrift.com/2008/10/14/wsj-obamas-95-illusion/
“Actually, the Senate did, just to remove any doubt.”
Actually a non-binding senate resolution passed by unanimous consent is about as meaningless as S. Res. 512, Honoring Charlton Heston.
C’mon, someone must have the responsibility for checking out candidate documents. Pat Leahy stated in the Congressional Record that a kid from an American Citizen born anywhere in the world would be eligible to run for President. If that’s the case then my brother in law’s kid that he had with ‘Nikki’ in Yokosuka can be the Pres. The Constitution says born and bred citizen, not born and bred dupe.
Darrell,
John McCain was born to American citizens serving their country outside the borders of the United States (in the Panama Canal Zone). I do not think it was the intent of our founding father’s to restrict such a citizen thus born from running for President. Perhaps you disagree. Then take it to the courts. But the election will not be won or lost on this issue. Most of us (those of us who cast ballots) think John McCain is qualified to run for President.
While my vote is probably going to end up going for Obama, I will admit that in at least some aspects he is more qualified to run for the office.
Brian,
I think online higher learning would involve widespread cheating. Who is going to prevent someone other then the student from sitting down at the keyboard when it comes time to take a test?
Your ideas on post secondary education are not without merit. However they pretty much are unworkable.
I thought you were a supply sider? If supply side economics is the answer then it should hold true for education as well. If costs keep going up due to increased demand then increase the supply and costs will come down.
I do not think that the answer to the challenges of today’s global economy is for America to restrict the availability of post secondary education.
Online does increase supply…..exponentially.
And by the way, your logic would mean no more papers can be written in college, since “who is going to prevent someone other then the student from sitting down at the keyboard”
Go ahead….Keep education in the industrial economy while the rest of the economic world is in the information age. Just don’t complain about the costs.
Brian,
Would you not agree that toilet paper diplomas are already now a problem?
Would you not agree that viruses are a problem on the internet?
But you think internet based diplomas should not be a problem?
What planet where you born on anyway?
Years ago, I was involved in developing software and technology to support distance learning. There are definitely unique challenges that apply to such a setup which are not present in a traditional teaching environment (our primary focus was non-verbal student feedback – “feel of the classroom”).
While it certainly can be done, to my mind it changes the model of higher education, moving it away from a liberal-arts type environment, to something more akin to modern certification and testing. Although possible, there are major technical hurdles to accurately reproduce what we consider a “classroom environment” into a distance insensitive model. What usually ends up resulting is a more strict and limitted curriculum, again more like certifications testing. Less “Dead Poets Society” and more Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. Depending on your educational goals, that may be perfectly acceptable.
LittleDavid, I was trying to avoid talking about your specific educational experience.