Colin Powell Endorses.

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.
  • imnotemily

    I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated the words of a top Republican more. Wow.

  • geo

    i’ve admired colin powell for many years despite ideological differences.
    this is a perfect example of why i hold him in such esteem.

    he is not consumed with blind loyalty like many in the top echelon in the repub party.

  • scott

    Powell is hardly a Repub and this certainly confirms it. Anyone who would say, “I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that’s what we’d be looking at in a McCain administration,” is hardly a Repub in my book. He is a RINO.

  • “Powell is hardly a Repub and this certainly confirms it.”

    There’s no such thing as a moderate Republican, Scott? No wonder there are more Dems these days.

  • scott

    shani-o:

    I think there are moderate Repubs and even a few liberal ones. However, I don’t understand why a moderate Repub (If that is what Powell really is) would be so upset with Bush’s S.Ct. picks. Especially, given the history of Repub nominations to the S.Ct turning into liberals like Brennan, Souter, Warren and Stevens.

  • scott: “Especially, given the history of Repub nominations to the S.Ct turning into liberals like Brennan, Souter, Warren and Stevens.”

    You seem to be suggesting that Republicans are in the habit of intentionally naming moderate/liberal justices out of ideological fairness. That’s not true. No one expected Warren to be as liberal as he eventually proved to be. Souter was supposed to be an originalist, and drifted leftward once he was appointed. And neither Stevens or (especially) Brennan were anywhere as conservative as the moderate Republicans who’d appointed them assumed they were to begin with.

    But if Powell is a RINO, what do you make of Chris Buckley or Michael Smerconish and other conservatives who have endorsed Obama?

    Is it completely impossible that they just find Obama a better choice?

  • scott

    GD:

    The point I wanted to make but didn’t was that Powell complains about putting more conservatives on the bench but yet pointing out that a few moderate Repubs turned out to be duds when they got onto the S.Ct. and so maybe the Respubs feel the need to appoint a conservative just to get a Repub on the bench. I guess my bottom line is why should a real moderate Repub (if Powell really is one) have a problem with Bush’s choices?

    As for Buckley, in his Daily Beast piece, his pros for Obama seem to be his temperament and intellect versus I guess what he assumes to be McCain’s more plebeian bearing. Buckley is an intellectual snob, who would have guessed? Also, he objects to the Neo-cons running things, which while I agree, I don’t see McCain letting them run things. Obama has been successful as painting McCain as Bush. As for Smerconish, his endorsement seems to be that he is voting for Obama b/c Bush screwed up Iraq. Honestly, I think Obama is the mainly the beneficiary of Bush’s screw ups and should be careful about believing his own hype.

  • scott: I’m not following. The last Republican appointments — Thomas, Roberts, and Alito —- have all been very, very conservative. The next president will have a chance to appoint at least one justice — Stevens is closing in on 90 — and maybe up to three. Why wouldn’t the balance of a 5-4 court be an important issue to any voter, moderate, liberal or conservative?

    “As for Buckley, in his Daily Beast piece, his pros for Obama seem to be his temperament and intellect versus I guess what he assumes to be McCain’s more plebeian bearing. Buckley is an intellectual snob, who would have guessed? Also, he objects to the Neo-cons running things, which while I agree, I don’t see McCain letting them run things. Obama has been successful as painting McCain as Bush. As for Smerconish, his endorsement seems to be that he is voting for Obama b/c Bush screwed up Iraq. Honestly, I think Obama is the mainly the beneficiary of Bush’s screw ups and should be careful about believing his own hype.”

    Oh, I get it. No conservative could really have any valid intellectual basis for voting for Obama.

    TO think that McCain wouldn’t let the neo-cons weigh in misreads his history. He was one of the earliest proponents of regime change in Iraq, way back during the Clinton administration, and said that he sympathized to a great extent with the neo-conservatives. And what about his foreign policy positions strikes you as a different stance than those expressed by the neo-cons?

    Also, I’ve not seen much evidence of Obama believing his own hype. You care to point out some examples?