Colin Powell Tees Off A Parting Shot At Bush & Cheney
Inauguration Day was not kind to the Bush/Cheney cabal (nor should it have been for that matter). The sheer enormity of the crowds on the Capitol Mall and in the streets of Washington DC was a powerful message on the joy of the new and the disdain of the old.
From the subtle pricks of President Obama’s words proclaiming an "end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics", to the massive crowd on the mall chanting and singing "Na-na-na-nah, hey, hey, goodbye" as Bush fled tail between his legs on Marine Executive One, it was really a fairly overt slap in the face to the banished cabal.
But, as Steve Benen points out, it’s pretty devastating when even you own men are blistering your backsides like former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell did with Bush/Cheney today. From an Interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric:
…Barack Obama’s election to the nation’s highest office a "reaffirmation of American principles values that will help us overcome some of the difficulties of recent years with respect to the attitude of the world toward us."
Speaking with CBS News Managing Editor Katie Couric, Powell said America’s prestige abroad has improved since Mr. Obama won a decisive victory over Senator John McCain.
"I think it has really, really been an remarkable event in terms of getting everybody to stand back and say, look at what we have seen here in America," Powell said. "The America we remember is back again."
Ouch. That’s a cold shot baby.
And, guess what, the cold shots were fired across the bow of Republicans in general today. From McClatchy:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Republicans received a reception Tuesday that rivaled the frigid winter weather, as hundreds of attendees greeted GOP lawmakers with boos, chants, hisses and — in some cases — stony silence.
The chilly display toward McConnell, who was flanked by other high-ranking Republicans as he took the stage at President Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony, was a momentary break in the otherwise jubilant spirit of the day.
Well, what do you know, the people have it all figured out as to the degraded state of America and who is to blame; I wonder when the big media sources, their blathering heads and pin head pundits will catch on?
Must be quite a party nationwide. No one here?
Yeah, that’s a cold shot. But Powell is no better than Joe Klein, piling on Chimpy after everyone else has already jumped on him. Powell went to the UN with fake evidence for WMDs and knowingly lied to help Chimpy invade Iraq. He can never live that down. He can just STFU.
As President Obama pointedly said to the party of failure in his Inaugural Address:
Heh, I’m watching David fucking Gregory on MSNBC right now. He hasn’t figured it out yet….
heh! I saw that! He was muttering something about Bush starting the “War on Terror Version 1″ or some such bullshit… I was yelling at the teevee…
It was total pablum. Jeebus, he may be worse than Russert.
It’s called “cognitive dissonance.”
They’re going to continue to dance until they realize they can’t breathe under water.
The GOP, Dubya, Cheney, and all their followers deluded themselves into believing that what they did was wonderful. I just wish I had been in DC to “boo” Dubya… These idiots are unbelievable!
maybe boxturtle cornyn will take notes, and apologize to America for being a dickwad about Hillary
but I’m betting that the repuglitards go into 2010 with America giving them the same stony glance
and the clueless fuckers are gonna wonder what hit them
think about it, before the election the repuglitards said that losing 3 senat seats would be the best they could do. And that fact did not cause any repuglitard to think his party should change
and then the stupid fucks lost EIGHT seats
and still, THEY DON’T GET IT
some days, you gotta keep kicking the stupid bastards till they stop wiggling
so wear your steel toes on the innertubes, folks
And 5 more are retiring!
Obama: “Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.”
I assumed Obama meant by these words, we’re fighting the MSM-Military-Industrial complex in addition to any terrorists. Warmongers, all.
Let’s don’t get too carried away with the rehab posse on Powell.
As the deal-closer for bush’s bloody clusterfuck, he’s got more kharmic dues to pay than you can shake a stick at.
Tom Tomorrow nails it:
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/12/02/tomo/
Um, in case it wasn’t obvious, the point of the post is that even Powell, who is a complicit Bushie, is kicking the crap out of the Bushies. This isn’t a rehab piece on Powell. That said, you have to be able to discern forest from trees; if Powell can be used as juxtaposition in order to sell and make points that we are going to have to make down the line, and it is quite clear that he may be useful in that regard, it would be nuts not to so use him. I understand he is a tool; I simply intend to be the user, and not the used, in the future. Never take bullets out of your gun before you go to fight.
Oh, it was obvious what he was doing. What he was doing is trying to exculpate himself for the dog-and-pony show that he ran at the U.N.
And since a few hundred thousand people have died who had jackshit to do with attacking us (and counting) in the invasion which he did so much to facilitate, I would suggest that anyone’s legalistic parsing about how scrumptious it is to see him going after Bush is pretty much nonsense.
This is a rat, still trying to find the hawser line to get off the sinking-up-to-the-gunnels ship.
You can chortle over it if you want to, but my memory isn’t that selective.
Take your “legalistic” crap and place it where the sun don’t shine, smart ass.
(self edited to reflect the standards of a good family blog – bmaz)
Yeah!
AS GWB said (paraphrasing here) If you aid and abet the terrorists, you’re a terrorist. The same goes for war criminals. Powell lent his credibility to Bush and Cheney. You can’t change your mind about jumping out of an airplane when you’re in freefall. Unfortunately, for Colin Powell for some things there is no mulligan.
The good news is that Cheney, Runsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Addington, Libby, Myers, Rove, Hadley, Yoo, Haynes and Bush have not been pardoned.
that would be good news if they were going to be prosecuted, we have no indication that’s going to happen
in fact, if they were pardoned they would be forced to testify against themselves in courts of law since they cannot be convicted
BMaz, if you think that Powell is a “bullet” for us to use, then can you please stay out of my foxhole? :o)
With what is coming down the pike, if he’s our “ammo”, we are in deep ca-ca. Now that he’s like a born-again sinner, I’m even more suspicious of him than when he was waving his little vial around at the UN.
I wouldn’t want someone being deliberately obtuse in my foxhole.
Why are you having so much trouble understanding this? Made perfect sense to me…
My goodness, how personal of you.
See the above post, please?
I’m listening to “tweety” on MSNBC and he’s off the rails. Somebody needs to confiscate his spooker.
Randiego@20: I understand it perfectly.
The problem is, as I said, that Powell was the deal-closer for a piece of foreign policy that is mostly responsible for the situation in which we now find ourselves. He has blood dripping off his hands, up to his elbows. His little mea culpa notwithstanding, and given the enormity of what he helped create, plus his desperation for some kind of absolution, he has squat for credibility; not even much with the mouthbreathers, who largely view him as a turncoat.
The idea that we can now, VERY selectively, pick him up and use him like cudgel on Bush and the rest of his minions, is a bit too…flexible…for me to digest.
If he’s our ammo, then we need to brush up on our slingshot skills.
It’s not far removed from giggling and pointing to Ann Coulter as she takes a few shots at Bush, as he heads off to Crawford.
I mean, who cares?
Do you suppose there is a way for you to express your disinterest more demonstrably?
Feh.
I’m all good with any Republican who wants to read the tea leaves and blast these assclowns. Bury them, I say. If it’s Powell with a shovel in his hand I’m okay with that too.
Powell’s lying at the UN was deplorable, no one here will ever forgive or forget that. He has to live with his conscience. But it’s not like Bush wasn’t going to war if Powell refused to show. He’s truly the one with blood on his hands, and we shouldn’t forget that.
Powell’s endorsement of Obama was not the demise of McCain, but damn if it didn’t help. Maybe that’s a bit too practical for you, but I’d rather win.
Yeah, and not only would I rather win — I want to win on MY terms.
I want to win without selling my soul, and I want to win something lasting.
Powell’s thoughtful, articulate support of Barak Obama last fall was a key decision factor in the voting behavior of several ‘moderate (white) Republicans’ that I know. His support of Obama-Biden, particularly in the fall, was important.
Powell was punk’d by a cabal, and that experience illuminated their amoral conduct for millions of us. He can’t fix it; none of us can.
I won’t cast stones at Colin Powell; I hope that he still has much to offer this world.
I hope that Colin Powell has five smooth stones: one each for malaria, AIDS, deforestation, corruption, and childbirth. We need all the help we can get.
I’m kinda with Tanbark on this one. I get the pleasure of seeing Powell take a stab, even if something of a pussy-assed stab, at the now departing shit hooks. But it’s way too little way too late.
His interest DOES seem to be more about burnishing his own image rather than any sincere mea-culpa or offering of anything useful which might earn some real absolvement.
I get that he’s a military guy, and a get the order executed type guy, and I get that he did try to some extent to dissuade the goose steppers from marching off to war, BUT if he’d had real courage, he’d have resigned and gone home with stiff lips.
He didn’t do that, so I’m not going to celebrate him. I say, either do everything you can to make things right or hit the road jack. Go home and be just as irrelevent as your so called reservations about the war. He sealed the deal, he knew he was lying. He sold his soul – and he broke our hearts.
You really gotta believe that Powell was in a serious bind.Acording to Wilkerson’s statements,Powell was kicking and screaming all the way to the UN.In fact I think he made Tenant and Negroponte sit benhind him at the UN and made comments about what it would be like if their wasn’t any wmds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwdsm-Oux4o
How many wars has the US been involved with that have actually been necessary or valid? He’s a soldier and in the end he follows orders
There are many details we don’t know yet about Powell’s place in the first Bush term — but some things are pretty clear if you go back and read his Deputy’s writings and statements, Wilkerson. Powell was always part of the old group around Scowcroft (who opposed the Iraq war, and tried to carefully organize a resistance.) We know certain things — for instance Joe Wilson’s op/ed’s before the war, has appearances on TV Panels as a war opponent, and I would think even his post war NYTimes piece that set Cheney off on Joe’s wife — this was all facilitated by Scowcroft and his circle, and to some extent Powell belongs in the Scowcroft Circle. They were not successful in stopping the Iraq Invasion — obviously, but we still don’t know what kind of role they played in the critique in the wake of the invasion. I think it is quite possible they played a significant role — stopping the Cheney/Rumsfeld forces from going on to Iran and Syria for instance. Cheney/Rumsfeld over time became defensive, they still had power up to 2006, but it was somewhat restrained. I think we have much to learn about all this — and the tale tellers should soon be coming out of the closet.
Obama is going to want, indeed need, some Republican Support in the Senate for many things — and to the degree that he can piece together some support from whatever lines of influence run from Powell, Scowcroft, and others in their orbit — for instance some of those Republicans on the Iraq Study Group more or less qualify for membership in this orbit. That doesn’t mean these people drive policy, just that they get a respectful hearing and do their good work influencing the likes of Olympia Snowe, Collins, Gregg, Lugar, Vonevitch, and a few others.
OT and By the way, today Pelosi appointed Keith Ellison to the House Foreign Relations Committee — of course a very junior member, but it’s nice to see our one fairly serious Muslim in Congress get this committee at the beginning of his second term. She even let him take time out during the last days of the last Congress to do the Haj, which gives him an important influential status in Muslim Circles. Very smart move by Miss Nancy.
trick question bmaz?
the answer is no, they didn’t back the republicans because they were fooled or because they thought americans backed the republicans, they backed the republicans because their corporate owners made it policy
now corporate media might be forced into presenting a more central point of view then before however we have to understand the truth is not republican or democrat, it’s the truth
presenting a centrist opinion when reporting the truth is lying since the truth doesn’t get “ballanced” from both
sides
until the media is broken up and until there is a fairness doctrine they will continue doing their best to get republicans elected over democrats
or
the democrats will corrupt themselves just as the republicans did and allow their law to be bought
Powell said. “The America we remember is back again.”
Whatever he now says, directly or obliquely, about the Cheney-Bush administration’s horrors, the Colin Powell we remember from before February 5, 2003 will never be back again.
Thanks bmaz.
digg
OT: IIRC, Powell was in on some of those 2002-2005 torture meetings in the White House, and he could testify to who said what etc. That’s not to say that he would. But he might.
Colin Powell could still take some steps that would lead to a partial recovery of a percentage of his reputation by being honest and forthcoming with his knowledge of any criminal activity involving the former occupants of the White House and Naval Observatory. He may want to schedule an interview with Seymour Hersh.
They sang “Kiss Him Goodbye”? That really happened?
Alas, this may be a sign that Obama is smart. The country’s collective relief at seeing Bush go may impede them from wanting to look into the dark swamp of what was done during those years, however necessary for abstract justice it may be. The Church Committee process was an addon to Watergate.
Link to video of Bush being Boo’ed and NA NA HEY HEY Singing as he entered
Yes, they did.
Also of note – check out the kids with the “Playing Cards” with Bush’s face on them.
Powell is trying to make himself look good after he hawked the Bush’s war monger agenda . He’s trying to make himself look good ,when he’s very responsible for the disastrous Iraq war. He was a shill for Bush & Co. Now he’s trying to back pedal. Another typical cowardly shitty political operative.. And the talking head MSM dumb fucks have NO clue.They only read from the Teleprompter and prepared questions that NEVER dig for the TRUTH !!! They’re ALL sorry pathetic dumb fuck idiots !!
If he can help us attain justice, and turn around the wrong, are you saying we should refuse that, and not use him? Are you so bitter that you would obviate getting wrongs righted just to spit on Powell?? Really???
That is remarkable. And wrong, at least in my humble eyes.
Well said.
And like you, I am really looking forward to information leaking out now.
Someone was able to encircle Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocons beginning sometime in 2006, although if the Dems hadn’t won the huge victories in the House, the state houses, and Webb, Tester, and other new Dems in the Senate in 2006, it would have been more difficult for the Scowcroft crowd to prevail.
Craig Unger’s “House of Bush” is fascinating about all the Republican factions, including Powell’s nemesis: Cheney.
Mr. Powell is complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the selling of a war he knew to be false. His statements during the time he committed such crimes are important to the Hague and the people of this country. His attempts to distance himself, or claim that he wasn’t a part of it or, did it on orders… nonsense. He made his choice.
Much like the Nuremberg trials. It is no excuse to take orders that are in violation of your constitution in favor of your fuhrer. Those that did not commit suicide were executed or imprisoned. So be it.