Tuesday, November 16, 2004
 alot happened yesterday in politics.
it all started when colin powell resigned. he was the first black u.s. secretary of state, the most senior cabinet member.
powell was also this country's best diplomat. respected for his military background but loved for his rational moderate positions on touchy subjects, powell was often at odds with the president and vice president.
when he wasnt towing the company line of fear/terror/wmd ("The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world") he was speaking his mind truthfully.
perhaps you remember when he was asked on an MTV interview about his opinion about the Catholic Church's stance against condom use:
"I respect the views of the Holy Father and the Catholic Church, but in my judgment, condoms are a way to prevent infection, and therefore I not only support their use, I encourage their use among people who are sexually active and need to protect themselves."
or maybe you recall when powell told the washington post that he did not know whether he would have recommended the iraq invasion if he knew that there were no wmds.
"I don't know, because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat to the region and to the world," he said. "(the) absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus; it changes the answer you get."
and how could you forget when he told the president about the you-break-it you-own-it "pottery barn rule" regarding what will happen if he was wrong about invading iraq?
"You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people," Mr. Powell is said to have told Mr. Bush in the summer of 2002, the nyt reported. "You will own all their hopes, aspirations and problems. You'll own it all."
powell wasnt always the clear-thinking humanitarian, more than a decade ago before the gulf war, he was joint cheif of staff and sent a letter to saddam that he quoted in his book my american journey 'Only conventional weapons will be used in strict accordance with the Geneva Convention and commonly accepted rules of warfare. If you, however, use chemical or biological weapons in violation of Treaty obligations, we will destroy your merchant fleet, destroy your port facilities, destroy your highway system, destroy your oil facilities, destroy your airline infrastructure.' I saved the worst for last… If we were driven to it, I wrote, 'we would destroy the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and flood Baghdad, with horrendous consequences.' and then he proceeded to oversee the bombing of the iraqi water supply (allegedly) and the highway of death where thousands of retreating surrendering iraqi troops on their way out of kuwait were massacred.
 maybe it was that experience and the time that he lied about the iran/contra coverup that kept him wincing during every faulty move within our current war which has been filled with human rights abuses, lies, coverups, and failure.
and maybe thats why he's tapping out now. while he still has a little dignity left. somehow.
the story of colin powell and this last chapter - his turbulent relationship with george w. bush - further adds to the ever-growing list of burned bridges and missed opportunities of this failed administration.
which is exactly why the instapundit pretty much blew it off yesterday within his 32 posts.
none of which mentioned that three other cabinet members resigned yesterday adding the fallout to 6 of 16 cabinet members quitting before having to endure a second term with bush.
other posts included --
clinton bashing: 1
lawrence welk: 1
tom brokaw being booed at an oklahoma football game: 1
moveon.org's "deceptive name": 1
unscam: 2
nyt: 3
garrison keiller's joke about deny voting rights to born-again Christians: 1 with 4 updates
condi rice: 2 with 5 updates
colin powell: 2 with 2 updates (six sentences in total).
ive often said that you can learn more about how republicans feel about the news by what glenn doesnt write about than what he does.
what glenn is saying is that these resignations and the resignations at the cia are a total embarrassment to the administration
similar to rats escaping a sinking ship.
martin shram once once wrote: "Three years ago, The General rode into Foggy Bottom on a white horse. Today he's riding a weasel."
looks like bush is on his way to another gloomy inauguration
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