Colin Powell, All-Inclusive Republican
posted at 1:52 pm on May 24, 2009 by CK MacLeod
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Across the United States this morning, life came to a standstill, and all the hungry sheeple looked up, waiting to be fed.
Finally, time zone by time zone, the virtual red smoke belched forth from the Face the Nation chimney, and the cry rose up: Habemus Republicanum! We have a Republican! Gen Colin Powell has not left the party! Strong men fainted and brave women wept at the news, but, as the smelling salts took effect and eyes cleared, no one could figure out what it meant.
Not that Powell was completely at a loss for words when it came to explaining why, for him, whatever Dick Cheney says, it’s Republicanism yesterday, Republicanism now, Republicanism forever:
Our vision, first and foremost, rests on values. Values because values are the conscience of a society. Values which must be lived, not just preached. Children learn values by watching their parents in their homes. Values which are then reinforced in their churches and in their places of worship, in the schools and in the communities in which they live.
And values, values fuel families. Families that are bound together by love and commitment. Families that then have the strength to withstand the assaults of contemporary life — to resist the images of violence and vulgarity that flood into our lives every day. Families that come together as communities to defeat the scourge of drugs and crime and incivility that threatens us.
* * *
We are the party committed to lessening the burden of taxes, cutting government regulations and reducing government spending, all for the purpose of generating the higher economic growth that will bring better jobs, wages and living standards to all our people.
[...]All of us must be willing to do with less from government if we are to avoid condemning our children and grandchildren with a crushing burden of debt that will deny them the American dream.
Of course, that was at the 1996 Republican Convention, as many of you will recall. Here’s what he had to say today, nearly 13 years later, explaining why he now believes in larger government and higher taxes and in suppressing all that immoderate values stuff, as he asserted his right to fight for what he believed in as an Obama-endorsing Republican:
…
Armed with such courageous non-beliefs and stirred by such gallant non-words – and distaste for Rush Limbaugh – Powell and the Powellites can now fan out across the Northeast in particular, testing the power of completely apolitical politics.
Part of the problem is that FTN host Bob Schieffer, the nicest guy in the world, doesn’t seem to care about what the Republican Party, Colin Powell, or for that matter the much-discussed Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and Barack Obama actually stand for. Powell did refer to the “base,” whom apparently he doesn’t expect to leave the party (phew!). He doesn’t think we should just “sit on the base and watch the world go by.” He seems to expect the base to just sit on itself, until required to show up to support whatever it is he and the other moderates come up with. What else the base should do or expect, and why it shouldn’t instead just spit moderates like him right out of its base-y mouth – that remains unaddressed for now.
Elsewhere in the interview, touching on issues in the news, Powell managed both to agree and to disagree with the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, viewing them both as torture and not as torture, just as he was both informed and not informed about them. He managed to criticize Obama’s handling of the Guantanamo detention facility as a matter of political tactics, while both agreeing and disagreeing with the notion that Guantanamo should be closed: For six years he’s believed that it should be closed, but he acknowledges that no one’s figured out how to do it yet. With this positioning, Powell manages both to agree with President Bush and to agree with the man who vilifies Bush.
Now that’s inclusiveness! You name the alternative, and he’s both for and against it.
Powell recently informed a group of business leaders that he was a member of a “version of the Republican Party waiting to emerge once again.” I think we can make out the platform for the New Republican Party: It would be the traditional Republican Party platform… plus the Democratic Party platform.
I’ll grant Powell this: A party that comes down on both sides of every issue, strongly and forthrightly, does indeed have many potential members. Everyone could join! Unfortunately, no one would have any reason to do so – which is why we may have to wait for a very long time for the grand emergence, or why no one will even notice when it has finally taken place.
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Yes, we all know that something is emerging from Colin. We just don’t like the smell.
Jim Treacher on May 24, 2009 at 3:20 PM
The guy just seems confused. He came out of the closet and admitted he was a liberal. The next thing you know he’ll tell us he’s gay!
Vanbasten on May 24, 2009 at 4:23 PM
Memo to Colin Powell:
Arlen Specter called himself a Republican for decades.
Doesn’t make it so.
Words have meanings.
Mew
acat on May 24, 2009 at 5:15 PM
“man who come down on both sides of fence, soon walk very funny”
BobH on May 24, 2009 at 6:04 PM
Nobody in the Republican party, or among Conservatives should even take Colin Powell seriously.
Right_of_Attila on May 24, 2009 at 6:04 PM
Colin believes if he repeats that lie enough it’ll become the truth.
SouthernGent on May 24, 2009 at 6:10 PM
Still waiting for him to speak out against libs like he’s been speaking against Republicans…
jgapinoy on May 24, 2009 at 6:11 PM
The political version of the Powell Doctrine: Approach all social and political problems with overwhelming ambiguity. If irony were a nuclear weapon, this man would Slim Pickens riding his weaponry into oblivion.
EMD on May 24, 2009 at 6:11 PM
Brooks has a good synopsis of the evolution of American thought on Gitmo.
strangelet on May 24, 2009 at 6:12 PM
Yup. Liberal. Maybe not democrat, but definitely liberal.
Who’s the next turd to line up next to Colon, Specter, and Makeup McCain?
Spiritk9 on May 24, 2009 at 6:13 PM
Hey, don’t knock it: It worked for Barack.
Lets face it – nobody could reliably claim to know what Barack believed or what his intentions were prior to taking office.
apollyonbob on May 24, 2009 at 6:15 PM
At least he and Specter are pro-abortion right?
Jamson64 on May 24, 2009 at 6:18 PM
I just scanned Politico’s coverage of Colins base bashing
Limbaugh doesn’t rile the base, he speaks for the basic conservative. Neither Limbaugh not his ‘followers’ have to be respectful of opinions they consider bad for the country. They have a right to their derision as much as any RINOpublican.
If Powell could rile the base they would be sending emails to Limbaugh
At some point, RINOs have got to convince the base there is something better than conservatism, or hit the road. Go see the Wizard of Oz of something. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink by drowning Rush Limbaugh in the pool
Why would any conservative forget Powell endorsed the most anti conservative opposition candidate in modern history? Answer: only if he is smoking what the membership committee is smoking.
To Powell: are you friggin nuts? what have you done for conservatives lately besides endorse Obama?
entagor on May 24, 2009 at 6:21 PM
What was the last position Colon was elected?
Wade on May 24, 2009 at 6:44 PM
Yes we did. The only slight surprise is the speed and in you face nature of it.
califdreamnred on May 24, 2009 at 6:48 PM
Powell tells us we need moderates but he abandoned the ultimate moderate in McCain. What gives Colon? You voted for Barry.
Big Orange on May 24, 2009 at 6:52 PM
Agreed.
The man stands for nothing, and worse, lectures the rest of us that we need to do so as well.
Hawkins1701 on May 24, 2009 at 6:57 PM
It’d be nice if someone asked him
“What policies are President Obama and the Congress pursuing that the Republican Party you envision should be opposing?”
If he gives an answer that isn’t gibberish
“Is it the case, then, that President Obama is pursuing policies at odds with what he ran on when you endorsed him for President?”
Powell endorsed Obama and Obama won.
If Obama’s just pursuing the policies Powell believed he ran on, then there’s really no reason why he’d care what condition the Republican Party is in – what’s the point? Why would he want an opposition party that’s “wrong on the issues” to get stronger?
BD57 on May 24, 2009 at 7:07 PM
Powell appears to be actively seeking to reshape the Republican party and in so doing, he is attempting to isolate the members of the party who he believes are a limiting factor in the achievement of a new Republican majority. Paraphrasing his comments concerning how he would defeat Saddam Husseins’ Republican Guard
Politically speaking, that is.
captivated_dem on May 24, 2009 at 7:10 PM
And what exactly is that? What republicans stand for? Cause I’m not seeing much except rabid criticism of our own.
I do feel some need to apologize to CK for issues past.
So I’ll leave you all to your orgy. You just sound like you are having so dang much fun declaring yourselves the only true republicans and all. If it rains you’ll drown.
petunia on May 24, 2009 at 7:53 PM
Piss off.
Blake on May 24, 2009 at 8:08 PM
At The Corner Yuval Levin scratches the surface of what’s wrong with this latest David Brooks apology for hypocrisy. Like Powell and Obama, Brooks has refined the art of idealistic-sounding cynicism. Essentially, Brooks argues that lying to my face and pretending to me that what you’re doing is completely different from what it is, while reminding me that it makes you better than me, is treating me as an “adult.” I think it’s treating me as a fellow mental patient or perhaps a peon. I am informed that, when the crisis comes, you will have no basis for action other than immediate self-interest, or maybe a coin flip, and the only thing that I can trust is that you will come up with a maximally self-serving explanation for your decision and the outcome.
That kind of thing works relatively well with the people but less so as time goes by: It’s called a “credibility gap,” and George W Bush was hardly the first president whose governance suffered as a result of it. One symptom is when even people inclined to support you start laughing as soon as you make some assertion of heartfelt belief. Even before the electorate gets wise, hypocrisy and self-dealing works poorly with those paying close attention – who include the people you’ve left to fend for themselves, and upon whom, sooner or later, you may find yourself depending for your very political life, not to mention the real lives of the people you’re sworn to protect.
CK MacLeod on May 24, 2009 at 8:10 PM
Can’t say I find that the most convincing or winning apology I’ve ever received.
Look, petunia, if you have an argument for Powell, or perhaps if you can explain to any of us, or at least to me, what he stands for and what significant political purpose he serves for any conservative that outweighs the harm he’s done and seems intent on continuing to do, then I stand ready to give it serious consideration.
Every time I hear from him and the other “moderates,” his main message is an attack on conservatives or a defense of BO.
CK MacLeod on May 24, 2009 at 8:17 PM
Okay. I’m sorry about the other day. It takes some hit in pride to say a genuine apology…but I’ve thought about it more than once and do feel sorry so there it is.
I read what Powell said and I agree mostly. So I guess we disagree yet again.
I still consider you a Republican however. I think I’m becoming more of a “moderate” myself. My path has been Independent, conservative, moderate.
I just can’t stand how polarized everyone is. And a small party can’t win anything any way so why bother having a party at all.
I’d like to see more energy directed at Obama than Powell or anyone in my own party.
petunia on May 24, 2009 at 8:35 PM
As soon as he supported Obama for President, he stopped being a Republican afaic. He’s never been a conservative. I think he bends to the wind. He as well as most of the Beltway gang should just go over to the other side and be done with it.
Laddy on May 24, 2009 at 8:36 PM
Powell is acting like Obama’s point man, so saying we should be directing our energy at Obama instead of Powell is b.s.
Blake on May 24, 2009 at 8:52 PM
Here’s my chance to repeat myself. I’m with Newt on the idea that the right needs more than The Base to win. I want The Base to be motivated but I don’t want to see it become a death cult of purity that keeps the democratic socialists in power for the next 40 years. I’m center-right and vote that way, but I’m not the base and never will be. There’s a lot of us out there, and all we ask is for the party to want to win more than to prove it’s correct, win or lose. Whatever the base wants to accomplish in the democratic process is their business, but don’t tell me to piss off if I’m not all in 100%. I don’t even care what the party platform is. Reagan found a way to make everyone happy and we need that again. To win.
emerson7 on May 24, 2009 at 8:53 PM
petunia, I appreciate your apology, though that doesn’t mean I really think it was necessary. I thought you’d already handled things (in other words, I had no hard feelings).
As for polarization, that’s part of having a two-party system or having any dialogue at all.
We’ve been repeating ourselves endlessly on this topic ever since the so-called moderates threw in explicitly (Powell) or effectively (Frum, Brooks) with Obama, and attempted to justify themselves in large part by attacking conservatives – echoing, validating, and extending the calumnies against the Republican candidates and against us that we have had well more than enough of from the Democrats and the mass media.
Speaking for myself, I don’t expect or need them to love me and everyone to my right, but we’re not going away, and they’re not getting anywhere without us in the Republican Party. If they’re on the other side firing at us, what do you expect us to do? Who is sewing division here?
I see conservatives sick and tired of being attacked, but my sense is that they’d much rather be fighting Obama than worrying about Powell, and that if Powell came out tomorrow talking more like the ‘96 Powell than the ‘08 Powell, most of us would be glad for the help, if wary of the helper based on sad, recent experience.
In the meantime, Laddy and others (like Cheney) are right, I think. The Obama endorsement was fundamental, and will remain so for Powell whatever team jersey he likes to wear.
CK MacLeod on May 24, 2009 at 9:03 PM
If you insult people, you can expect to be told to piss off. Exactly what do you whateveryoucallyourselfwant?
Fiscal conservatism? Got it.
Pro-choice? Not going to happen. Live with it. The bottomline, Roe v. Wade is never going to be reversed no matter how many people predict it. It is a non-issue.
Legalize drugs? No. Learn some self control. And any state can pass laws that for the most effect decriminalize MJ if they choose to. It is not a federal issue.
Healthcare? Well, I’m not sure it needs to be reformed and if it does, definitely not by nationalizing it which is lousy care at a higher cost to the individual. It’s great if you are a dead beat but not so great if you work and pay taxes.
National Security? The gop will always outshine the donks.
Anything else?
Blake on May 24, 2009 at 9:18 PM
I absolutely loved that. The Crowning of the Pope of Republicandom.
strangelet on May 24, 2009 at 10:01 PM
Also, I really don’t care for the mad shamans at the Corner much, except for my homeslice, Jim Manzi, who I affectionately call Riddick, because of his strong resemblance to Vin Diesel.
Yuval Levin is a bioluddite, but I guess I’ll go read that.
/sigh
strangelet on May 24, 2009 at 10:06 PM
Well, atleast it was short.
Where is that coming from? Levin is delusional.
Obama stopped the tortureboarding.
No more.
Obama is closing Gitmo as fast as he can.
Kinda hard when the refuglicans are getting the dems constituents all nimbyfied.
What Obama is doing is graceful degradation of service. We can’t just toss the prisoners out of our retention centers and Gitmo and lock the doors.
My opinon of Levin is unchanged. A bioluddite AND a mad shaman.
Buncha partisan bullsytt.
strangelet on May 24, 2009 at 10:23 PM
Does the general buy his empty suits off the rack?
bbhack on May 24, 2009 at 10:40 PM
So Powell is a Republican and he showed his loyalty to the party by voting for the other guy. Now if he had just made his vote in secret that would have been one thing. But he announced it in advance and by so doing may have contributed to others abandoning the Republican party too. So now he claims he is a new kind of republican and that he isn’t quitting the party. Although, he did in the last election! I kinda think the Republican party can do without this new breed of Republican! Hmmm, sounds like Obama didn’t offer him a job.
Bluehanky on May 24, 2009 at 10:45 PM
Now, strangelet, that Brooks’ op-ed you provided already demonstrated that world enemy Bush stopped waterboarding and began to close down Gitmo. All that Obama has done is make a stink about it, then half-apologize, while explicitly retaining the right to order just about whatever the heck suits his executive fancy down the line – in the meantime sending suspected combatants (those not victims of the heightened chance of summary battlefield execution and not sunk in a deep Bagram hole) off to whatever convenient Egyptian, Syrian, Yemeni, Afghan, Turkish, Russian, Uzbek, etc. dungeon where ACLU lawyers and Andrew Sullivan wouldn’t be welcome, at least as observers, though possibly at some point in other roles!
CK MacLeod on May 24, 2009 at 11:03 PM
So?
What’s yer point, my delicious Celtic Homeslice?
What part of machiavellian pragmatist do you not unnerstand?
O is going to be exploitive and opportunistic and……subversive.
hehe
He’s goin to do w/e he has to and GW is goin in the history books as the Torture President that was manipulated by bible quotes.
/smiles
strangelet on May 25, 2009 at 1:00 AM
Obama is going to do stuff like stand in front of the national archives and call loudly and charmingly upon our better angels.
That is what he does.
And Bush is going to look like Unrefined Satan.
lol
strangelet on May 25, 2009 at 1:04 AM
Nonsense. The information was there for ANYONE actually paying attention.
Just look back in the archives here at Hot Air:
Many of us predicted precisely what 0bama was and what he would try to do.
LegendHasIt on May 25, 2009 at 1:46 AM
So, in other words, your boy is style over substance, who values the way things look more than solutions.
You’ve fallen for it, and that’s the way (uh huh, uh huh) you like it. I hope you’re just young and naive, and not a fully-grown adult just happy to be delusional.
L.N. Smithee on May 25, 2009 at 2:19 AM
Powell wants the Republicans to remain predominately the “Country Club” set now that he’s been allowed to join. Have to keep out the riff raff.
Cindy Munford on May 25, 2009 at 6:36 AM
I relate Rino’s and moderates to the ‘double-minded’ person described in the Bible. They are unstable in all their ways.
Hogeye13 on May 25, 2009 at 8:15 AM
The part where it’s something to be tolerated, let alone praised, you dimwitted Obama drone.
Jim Treacher on May 25, 2009 at 8:34 AM
So he says.
That’s what he claims.
That is indeed what he wants us to believe.
You just described him as “Machiavellian,” and yet you want us to take him at his word?
Jim Treacher on May 25, 2009 at 8:41 AM
I can be as pragmatic as a virus and still fail. I can be as pragmatic as a virus and deserve to be feared and if possible eradicated.
Depending on how things go, BO could be condemned as the president who, instead of condemning water sports and his own intelligence service and shipping terrorist combatants off to get flayed by Saudis, should have been flaying them himself and keeping the information at home.
Likewise, the actions of some future president, or perhaps this president, might someday make W’s water sports look rather trivial – or like a great idea that we better get busy with again. My own guess is that that’s a near certainty, sooner or later.
BO has been bottom-lined as “let’s try weak.” He’s quietly reserved the right to try coat-hanger wire in the terrorist tender parts if an imminent attack threatens his polling numbers, but that’s not the same at all as “BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY protect us.” No Prez fully controls events. In economics and security, BO has reinforced the eventual arguments against him.
To return to our topic, Colin Powell could conceivably be celebrated as a revolutionary prophet of the new Holy Unitary Democratic Republican Order, the endorsement of October ‘08 seen as death knell of meaningful domestic opposition to Emperor Teleprompter Jesus. That precise same act could be viewed in 2020 as a great and holy thing, and in 2050 as a great betrayal, and in 2075 be remembered by scholars of North American history only.
We don’t know. We retain the freedom to view it as good or bad – worse to the precise extent it “succeeds,” regardless of what proportions of luck and “Machiavellian” connivance are involved. All we know for now is that, as Machiavelli would say, fortune moves by unknown roads. As Bob Dylan would say, the first one now will later be last.
CK MacLeod on May 25, 2009 at 10:08 AM
lol @ Treach
You missed the whole discussion on tortue and machiavellian pragmatism…praps the MacLeod can give you a remedial link.
Trudat, Highlander, but your probability of success is vastly increased. Hmmm….that is wunnerful analogy, relly. Obamanism as a viral meme– most of us intelligensia are infected….and that would mean….Palinism is the anti-viral!
Probably Palinsm works by blocking or destroying sufficient neurocortical receptors to confuse the victim….kind of like an electoral Alzheimers.
strangelet on May 25, 2009 at 10:29 AM
That is simply the wrong thing to say to meh. In mathematics, “weak” methods can be wonderfully successful.
strangelet on May 25, 2009 at 10:36 AM
BTW the intelligentsia is still in full mock mode.
Here’s my entry– “Demonic Possesion in the 21st Century: How Sarah Palin Became a Virtual Host for Kylon of Croton
Perhaps Bobby Jindal would co-author?
strangelet on May 25, 2009 at 10:42 AM
You missed where I give a crap.
Jim Treacher on May 25, 2009 at 11:15 AM
JIC you haven’t noticed, strange, the American Intelligentsia has rarely if ever left full self-mockery mode. I remain grateful that my suborn and menial existence spares me the embarrassment of membership in a club whose leading members include BO, Brooks, and our modern major general.
Otherwise, I expect to provide many future opportunities for you to air out your Palin obsession, and, if you’d like to volunteer as research assistant/Obamaist gadfly, I can supply you with an e-mail address – no need to hijack this thread.
CK MacLeod on May 25, 2009 at 11:15 AM
As if we’re to believe you’re any better at math than you are at English.
Jim Treacher on May 25, 2009 at 11:16 AM
As the new titular head of the Republican Party General Powell, please tell the world why you voted for Obama, what you think about his associations and his ties to Alinsky and Soros, and why you don’t think the Messiah’s agenda is not radical or statist and the American way of life is not threatened?
technopeasant on May 25, 2009 at 3:13 PM
Could I have your email, Highlander?
It turns out we did rape detainees after all, contra your impassioned denial.
I wonder……are you ready to be Alyosha yet?
strangelet on May 28, 2009 at 10:38 PM