Colin Powell's Presidential Endorsement

Army four-star general and President Bush's former Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement yesterday of Barack Obama was not so much a repudiation of John McCain, although he did question whether McCain really grasped the causes of the current financial crisis and he had some harsh words about the negative direction of McCain's campaign, as much as it was an indictment of Powell's own Republican party, which, he said, is moving too far to the right. Powell is a pragmatist and he see's his party being controlled by the neoconservatives.

I was particularly moved when Powell talked about this picture he saw of a mother at the grave of her soldier-son slain in Iraq and I thought he made a superb point when he talked about the Republican party's whisper campaign concerning Obama's religious beliefs. Powell also questioned McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate saying she clearly wasn't ready to assume the presidency.

I have nothing concrete to base this on, but I also have a feeling that Powell's endorsement is as much a repudiation of President Bush as it was an endorsement of Barack Obama. I believe Powell believes his legacy has been tainted by Bush and I'm betting he is particularly angry that Bush provided him with false intelligence about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" that Powell took before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003. I also know Powell did not completely endorse the invasion of Iraq and said repeatedly that Bush had committed too few troops to make the incursion a success, but he recommendations and advice were repeatedly undercut by neocons Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.