Will Colin Powell Endorse Barack Obama?

By: Lowell
Published On: 6/10/2007 9:04:29 PM

From today's Meet the Press interview with former Secretary of State Colin Powell:

MR. RUSSERT:  Before you go, Newsweek magazine reports that Senator Barack Obama has sought you out for your advice on foreign policy.  True?

GEN. POWELL:  True.  I?ve met with Senator Obama twice.  I?ve been around this town a long time, and I know everybody who is running for office, and I make myself available to talk about foreign policy matters and military matters with whoever wishes to chat with me.

[...]

MR. RUSSERT:  Any endorsements?

GEN. POWELL:  Oh, not yet.  It?s too early.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you?ll support the Republican?

GEN. POWELL:  It?s too early.

MR. RUSSERT:  Would you support an independent?

GEN. POWELL:  I?m going to support, I?m going to support the best person that I can find who will lead this country for the eight years beginning in January 2009.

MR. RUSSERT:  Of any party?

GEN. POWELL:  The best person I can find.

Very interesting, I wonder if Colin Powell is advising any other Presidential candidates besides Barack Obama.  What would a Powell endorsement of Obama do, if anything, to the Democratic race fot the nomination? 


Comments



Powell: Close Guantanamo (relawson - 6/10/2007 10:47:34 PM)
Looks like George Bush is losing another former supporter because of his failed policies...

http://www.washingto...

"If it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo. Not tomorrow, but this afternoon. I'd close it," he said.

"And I would not let any of those people go," he said. "I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system. The concern was, well then they'll have access to lawyers, then they'll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them. Isn't that what our system is all about?"



I was ready to laugh off this possibility (Chris Guy - 6/11/2007 1:36:16 AM)
But looking at those comments, I actually think it's a distinct possibility.

And then of course the morons on the right will say he's endorsing Obama only because of his race. Can't wait for that.



Post partisanship (Bernie Quigley - 6/11/2007 6:40:24 AM)
The return of Powell is intrigueing. Perhaps he is being influenced by "post partisanship" by his buddy Arnold. Last night the editor of the Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel was glowing about Republicans Mike Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger and the rise of "regionalism." Powell would be a VP short list candidate for Mike Bloomberg's third party - Bloomberg, Powell, Arnold as Sec. of State would carry some influence.


A political eunuch (vadem - 6/11/2007 6:56:27 AM)
I believe that Colin Powell is relevant no more.  His time in the political world was finished forever when he sat before the UN to give his mobile labs, WMD speech.  His Chief of Staff, Wilkerson, claimed in a recent talk to a local committee that he and Powell were lied to (his words). But that is no excuse for the wholesale boondoggle he presented to the world.  It was largely on his say so that many Americans foolishly believed Bush/Cheney on going to war.  A man who cannot tease out the truth from the lies should not be advising anyone and I'd darned sure think 2 or 3 times about a candidate that sought his advice over that of others more imminently qualified.


Hardly a eunuch, but he has come to symbolize something else (Silence Dogood - 6/11/2007 5:55:22 PM)
As Chairman of the JCOS, General Powell represented the best of America's potential: a poor young man who gained access to higher education through the military, who served in Vietnam as a line officer and helped to rebuild the Army after it fell apart in the wake of that conflict, and who became one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and honorable leaders in American public life.  Today, he remains an American symbol--specifically because you think he's irrelevant.  The Presidents' abuse of his credibility in spinning an unnecessary war and his loss of prestige on the world stage mirrors directly our loss of credibility and prestige as a nation.

We need Colin Powell today because as much as he needs his honor retored to him, our nation needs it, as well.  How we incorporate the legacy of Colin Powell into our nation in a relevant, meaningful way as we move forward into 2008 and beyond will speak directly to how we as Americans will remain relevant in the post-Iraq world of the 21st Century.



Brilliantly put (snolan - 6/12/2007 6:41:30 PM)
Thank you....

I have been unable to forgive the embarrassing lies presented before going to war against Iraq; but you point out a very real appeal Colin Powell still has to many people today.

Will we heal?  I don't know...