Wingnuttery: Pwned

Hard as this might be to believe, today's announcement by Colin Powell did not receive universal acclaim.

Nice job, Matt Stoller:

Here's Rush Limbaugh.

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," Limbaugh wrote in an email. "OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."

Well, I'm pretty sure that Powell in 2000 endorsed George W. Bush, an inexperienced white candidate.

(h/t: Matthew Yglesias)

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[Added] Oh, and by the way, Yglesias characterizes people like me correctly, and argues that the endorsement is of some significance to other types. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

[Added] And he's definitely right about what Powell said about Muslims. I should have called attention to that myself -- I did like hearing it, but I didn't note it. I guess I kind of thought, Well, duh, but it's clearly a mistake to take such a point of view for granted.

[Added] All right, this thought is good, too.

Maybe I Was Wrong?

I said yesterday at the end of this post that I didn't think the Colin Powell endorsement would be very significant. I noted that Matthew Yglesias had made a good argument against my point of view, considering a different group of people.

Now, thanks to TPMtv's Sunday Show Roundup, I realize I forgot about another, perhaps even more important, audience: the chattering classes.

Two key points to watch for: First, there is near-unanimity among the talking heads that this will be something to talk about for at least a couple of days. At this point in the campaign, that's a non-trivial fraction of the time remaining. That's two days out of the final two weeks where the latest wingnuttery isn't getting airtime in any place but their little echo chambers. Second, note the number of Republicans shown who agree that This Is Important.

I think that among those mysterious people who have yet to decide who they're voting for, Powell matters, for the reasons given in the following. Moreover, at least some of these fence-sitters get their information from the Sunday talk shows, I'd guess. So, maybe the Powell endorsement does matter. I'd be delighted to be wrong.

I was going to say there was a third key thing to watch for: McCain's obvious seething when asked about the Powell endorsement. However, it's been so long since I've seen McCain speak through anything but clenched teeth that I'm not sure this counts. Anyway, on with the show.

(alt. video link)

More Powell!

From Jed, the master of the video mashup:

I've spent most of the afternoon (and early evening) putting together a new montage of Colin Powell's endorsement, along with video clips from the campaign trail supporting his key points.

As you can see, Powell didn't just endorse Barack Obama -- he also systematically dismantled the entire rationale for John McCain's presidential campaign:

(alt. video link)

Another One Sees The Light

Via TPM, here's part of an email from Ken Adelman to George Packer, explaining why he's going to vote for Obama:

Why so, since my views align a lot more with McCain’s than with Obama’s? And since I truly dread the notion of a Democratic president, Democratic House, and hugely Democratic Senate?

Primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and of judgment.

When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I’ve concluded that that’s no way a president can act under pressure.

Second is judgment. The most important decision John McCain made in his long campaign was deciding on a running mate.

That decision showed appalling lack of judgment. Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office—I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain’s main two, and best two, themes for his campaign—Country First, and experience counts. Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick.

If McCain's lost the confidence of a guy like Ken Adelman, he's well and truly doomed. As with Colin Powell, it's not about policy for any conservative with a brain anymore. No matter how much they might have agreed with John McCain in the past, in between his pick of Palin, his age, and his recent actions and words, they just plain don't trust him to be able to do the job.

(If you don't remember who Ken Adelman is, following the above links will remind you.)

[Added] Follow-up email from Adelman to Packer:

The Republican handling of the war made me value “experience” far less. If Cheney, Rumsfeld & Powell are the epitome of experience, I’ll take the alternative. They’ve given experience a bad name.

Further thought: McCain’s campaign soured me a lot. His hiring of the Bush attack squad, South Carolina 2000, made me view this honorable man as heading a dishonorable effort. And that’s still the case. It’s pretty disgusting, what he’s doing…

[Added] George Packer's (post-debate) reflections on the differences between Obama's and McCain's characters is also well worth a read.

More Colin Powell

Here's some footage of Powell talking to reporters after his appearance on Meet The Press (noted earlier).

(alt. video link)

I liked that he was so clear about McCain's sleazy campaign tactics and how important Obama and real change are. I guess I couldn't realistically ask for anything different from him on the situation in Iraq. (Jumping the gun a little bit, I do wonder how quickly all those The Surge Is A Success^TM types are going to be singing a different tune once Obama takes office.)

(h/t: Lowell/Raising Kaine)

Yeah, so here is some DFH talking about "no nukes" or whatever

When I read Weapons and Hope by Freeman Dyson, one of the things that struck me most was his portrayal of the professional soldiers' utter distaste for nuclear weapons. In this four-minute clip, Colin Powell sounds like he comes right from those pages.

(alt. video link)

Maybe you don't care much for Powell, professional soldiers in general, or the other people apparently to come in the film he's introducing, but he sounds like a sincere and valuable ally for something you and I care about.

There's a more comprehensive introduction at Wonk Room.

__________

You can also visit the site for the movie, Nuclear Tipping Point, produced by the Nuclear Security Project, and even order a free DVD. Be advised that the trailer for the movie, which you can watch on the site, leans heavily on the nukes-falling-into-terrorist-hands aspect, but it looks like the goal of the group is much broader reduction of all manner of threats from nuclear weapons. Check it out.

(h/t: Robert Farley)

[Added] Related.

Just When You Thought There Was Nothing More To Say About The Powell Endorsement ...

... Bérubé has to go and weigh in.

Know Thine Enemies

Matt Duss has an article in The Nation, "Attack of the Cheneys," that you really ought to read, especially if you haven't been paying attention to cable news, CPAC, the blogs, etc. Besides her father, Liz Cheney is someone else to watch out for.

Glad someone besides me is saying things like this:

No question about it: Liz and Dick Cheney are on a mission, but just what is that mission? Some of it is clearly personal: in Dick's case, it's about burnishing his legacy; for Liz, there's the possibility of a run for Congress or the Senate. But in order to reposition themselves to retake the reins of power, the Cheneys must rescue the "global war on terror" from the ash heap of history, and they're doing this by playing the one card they've got: fear.

And this:

It turns out, however, that being disastrously wrong on the most significant foreign policy questions of the era is no barrier to continued influence in American politics. Even though their bong-hit theories about transforming the Middle East at the point of an American gun retain about as much popular appeal as E. coli, the neocons continue to impact US foreign policy debates through an entrenched network of think tanks (the American Enterprise Institute, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Hudson Institute), publications (The Weekly Standard, Commentary, National Review), supportive editorial boards (the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal) and, of course, Fox News.

And this:

Crucially, Kagan and Kristol's views were not offered primarily as an analysis of foreign policy or international affairs but as a formula for conservative political success. Finding monsters abroad was, in their view, necessary for maintaining conservative power at home. September 11 provided the perfect monsters to match neoconservatives' ambitions, and they made the most of the opportunity. They won't give up the monsters without a struggle.

Interesting point here, too:

"The problem for knowledgeable Republican foreign policy realists like Colin Powell, Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel is that the neocons are able to dismiss their concerns and policy recommendation as 'me-tooism' of the 'liberal' foreign policies of the Democratic Party," says Tom Shachtman, co-author of The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons From Nixon to Obama. Shachtman suggests that the neocons greatly benefit from the news media's tendency toward sensationalism. "Their far-out, deliberately argumentative and provocative stances are, they know, much more attractive to media outlets than the stances of the realists," Shachtman says. "The media's current mantra is, 'Let's you and him fight,' and so if a foreign policy moderate is reluctant to utter fighting words, any media outlet that is scrambling for ratings will find a neocon to do so."

One more point to highlight:

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman, author of the book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, says that Liz has been the driving force behind her father's reappearance on the national scene. "He really doesn't care what anyone thinks of him," Gellman says. "She's much more interested in responding to his critics and getting him to respond. It's because of her more than anyone that he's writing his memoirs. She's encouraging him to get out there."

Of course, she is regularly said to have office-holding ambitions, so this legacy-burnishing on her father's behalf is something less than family loyalty. Here's the good news, though:

As for Liz's own views, Gellman says, "From everything I can tell, she's a little bit to the right of her father.

There's quite a bit more about her, as well as the organization she founded with Bill "Always Wrong" Kristol, but I think I've blockquoted enough. Well worth a look.

(x-posted | h/t: Robert Farley ← do click, for a laugh)

43

Think Progress has come up with a clever conceit for this time of retrospectives: a list called "The Top 43 Appointees Who Helped Make Bush The Worst President Ever."

Roger Ailes (the trustworthy one) says Brownie doesn't belong as high on the list as he appears. I agree with this -- he was more a symptom than a cause. I suppose he's right, also, that Condoleezza Rice should be higher than Ari Fleischer, but I wouldn't want to push Mr. "Americans need to watch what they say" too far down the list -- he was the willing and eager mouthpiece for an Administration that tried to equate dissent with treason.

Colin Powell is way down on the list at number 39. I wonder how much forgiveness he bought himself in TP's mind with his prominent endorsement of Obama. I guess he bought a little from me with that, but I'll never stop thinking that if there was one person who could had a chance to stop the sell job of the invasion of Iraq, it was him. Instead of doing that dog and pony show at the UN, he could have said, "This Administration is offering you fertilizer. It has a powerful odor such that none may abide its smell."

Panic on the Right

You may have read somewhere that Ron Paul recently won the straw poll for "We Want This Person To Be The Next Preznit" at the big wingnut gathering (aka CPAC 2010).

Who is not happy about this?

(alt. video link)

Who is not happy about this?

"The Kids Are Alright -- Unless They Vote for Ron Paul at CPAC, Say Rightbloggers."

Who is not happy about this?

"Let’s take a look at a typical reaction by a typical wingnut, namely one John Hinderaker."

Add this to the treachery!!!1! of Scott Brown and the exposure of another AGW denialist, and I gotta say, there's been some happy news lately.

[Added] Not to mention wingnut hero Dick Cheney getting busted for lying again, and then harshly contradicted by Generals Colin Powell and David Petraeus on the Sunday talk shows. Oh, and hey, what's this?

[Added2] Oh, and hey. What's this Google result???

Uh, never mind. Different Cheney. I should have known better -- he only hits them in the face.

The Old Soldier Speaks

I used to have a lot more respect for this guy, but what he has to say here is still worth listening to:

(alt. video link | related story)

(h/t: icebergslim)

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[Added] Powell takes follow-up questions after the show.

Bring Back Jocelyn Elders

Kudos to you if you remember Dr. Elders. If not …

There's a story in today's NYTimes about testimony given before Congress by Richard Carmona, who was Surgeon General from 2002 to 2006. In his testimony, he described the political pressures put upon him by other Bushies; e.g., they " … would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues … " It goes downhill from there to a point of true surreality:

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And on and on and on. No great surprise, although the details make even my jaded heart sink.

This being the NYT, we have to hear "the other side." Enter the trained seal of the moment, drawn from the Bush Administration's limitless supply of blandly named people who will say anything for money:

Bill Hall, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that the administration disagreed with Dr. Carmona’s statements. "It has always been this administration's position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science," Mr. Hall said.

I guess if you're the sort of person who is convinced that the Book of Genesis tells you all you need to know about cosmology and biology, you might accept that.

I have to say, however, that by the time I got to the end of the article, I had almost zero sympathy for Carmona. It sounded like Colin Powell all over again. I wanted to scream in his face, "Why did you wait until NOW to speak up?"

In general, there's an argument to be made for serving out one's term, and another one for sticking to it with the idea of making changes from within. But there comes a time -- read: any moment during the Bush Administration -- when things are so obviously wrong, and the possibilities of being an effective counterweight so remote, that the only responsible thing to do is to speak up. Either resign with a bang, or refuse to be handled until you embarrass your handlers into tossing you overboard.

Thanks for your testimony, Dr. Carmona. Now go away, please.

Generality

You always have to give your Wonkettes props for their words, but they dig up some mighty fine artwork, too. This happy bit about Colin Powell is the best decorated post since that Gawker dignity-on-teevee thing.