Gary Sauer-Thompson has a really good point to make about the way that Colin Powell has justified his decision to endorse Barack Obama:
Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press was based on a form of public political reasoning reasoning that addresses issues not personalities, and engages in analysis not demonization. It is a thoroughgoing critique of McCain’s issue-free, fear-mongering campaign and a rejection of the politics of scapegoating and bullying that have defined the Bush years.
As Sauer-Thompson observes, Powell’s response to the constant invocation of Obama’s “Muslim” middle name is also equally as significant (and there can just be no doubt that the McCain campaign’s linking of Obama to “terrorists” is meant to reinforce such suspicions – which have been put about all year by the noise machine). Powell has joined an increasing number of prominent moderate Republicans – such as Susan Eisenhower and Lincoln Chaffee, to name only a few, who have rejected the political tactics of division and emnity which have characterised recent GOP campaigns. While the wingnuts would no doubt live to shriek another day under an Obama presidency, a popular rejection of the poisonous culture wars would be a very significant event indeed.
What is more worrying than robocalls and the terrorist stuff – is the RNC & Federal Govt’s intervention in voter suppression.
The Supreme Court has upheld a decision siding with Ohio’s electorate officials against the local Republicans and therefore 200,000 voter registrations are now safe there – but the RNC are on the move in a whole pile of states.
Hopefully Obama’s offensive move in appealing to the AG will counter a repeat of 2000/2004. But if the vote is closer than what the polls are currently saying this is the strategy to get over the line..again.
And the note the McCain camp’s reaction at the end.
From the NYT:
McCain must be feudin’ with quite a lot of his own party, for them to be backing his opposing candidate.
Powell would be more aware than most, the shell game is over.
He is dis associating himself from the Bush neocon experiment, at the speed of light.
Folks, welcome to the shallow end of the gene pool.
Rehabilitating himself perhaps?
Poor dude’s eaten so many Bushco shit sandwiches.
Pub Steve, I think you’re right.
Best way though I’ve heard Powell’s stand expressed was “Flag Endorses Wind Direction”.
Powell endorses Obambi. That should be enough to turn the tide against Obama except that the catatonic stupor of Obamania is now totally ingrained.
This speech, the accompanying slide show of mobile chemical weapons factories & his display of a vial of anthrax lead to the Iraq war. He has lost the little credibility left. [Link]
I sure McCain didn’t want Powell’s endorsement although I’m sure he would have preferred Powell to be silent.
Voter suppression Jo? Surely badgering people to death (six year olds, homeless, disabled, Mickey Mouse, dead poeple) to register to vote five, ten, fifteen, twenty times sounds more like voter oppression to me.
The ‘Obama is a Muslim’ slogan started during the Democrat primaries, well before even McCain won the Republican nomination. Guess where it most likely started.
In any case, this has some basis in truth as Obama himself has noted both in his book and publically that he was registered as a Muslim by his step father when he was a child in Indonesia (this is why he wrote about pulling faces during Koranic studies, and why he can still recite the call to prayer in very good Arabic.) before he joined the church of the non-Christian Jeremiah Wright as a young adult.
Obama being a Muslim is neither here nor there (and here is how McCain supporters respond both on blogs and at rallies to those who don’t understand that).
Frankly I’d be more worried about 20 years of influence by Jeremiah Wright and why every fruitcake from Ghaddafi (who is convinced Obama is a Muslim by the way) to Farrakhan has endorsed Obama.
If I were Powell, I wouldn’t want to be keeping company with them.
I sure McCain didn’t want Powell’s endorsement although I’m sure he would have preferred Powell to be silent.
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Oh?
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Why’s that? Because Powell single handedly fucked the war with his over-optiomistic totalitarian ideological claptrap and tried to turn the Defence Dept into a subsidiary of Wal-Mart and…
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Oh wait…
Look you people get it straight. Obama is a terrorist. A Muslim bent on destroying the world for the sick creed that bred him. These people are irrational, these people are crazy, these people ignore science.
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That’s why we need to make Sarah Palin the Prez.
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Um….