Colin Powell
At Conventions, It's Television, Not the Platform, That Counts
Every four years, involving one party or the other, it seems that we get a batch of stories just like today’s Washington Post write-up on a possible platform fight between John McCain and the G.O.P.’s right wing.
It’s almost always much ado about nothing. Tension between the nominee of either party – who is interested in projecting a moderate, inclusive image to the general-election audience – and that nominee’s red-meat-hungry party base are inevitable. But party platforms themselves do not influence mass opinion – the pictures and sounds that come out of the convention do. read more »
Deal! Colin Powell Buys on West Side for $1.85 M. (Fancy Fridge? Hell No!)
According to city records, a trust in Ms. Powell’s name paid $1.85 million last month for a two-bedroom apartment at the 81-year-old building. read more »
New Powell Biography Criticizes Neocons as Israel-Centric
According to the author, the then-secretary went out of his way to identify the pro-war neoconservatives as affiliates of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a think-tank with decidedly hard-line views on Israel's security. "Powell referred to Rumsfeld's team as the 'JINSA crowd.' " Later in "Soldier," readers are told that the neoconservatives in the Defense Department -- nearly all of them Jews -- supported war against Iraq as the first step to replacing Arab despots with democratic governments that would sever their ties to the Palestinians, thereby enhancing Israel's security. In explaining why he did not resign over his profound differences with the White House, Powell cited the example of Gen. George C. Marshall, who refused to quit as secretary of State even though he opposed President Truman's recognition of Israel as a quest for "Jewish votes."
The LAT's reviewer, Tim Rutten, dismisses this thinking as a "blot," the old "dual-loyalty" charge. Yes, this is how we are chided again and again, that it's wrong and antisemitic to even raise the question. Yet the evidence won't go away: that the Iraq war plans were pushed by people who opposed the Oslo peace process and dismissed the Palestinians' grievances as baseless, who saw the way to peace in Jerusalem going through Baghdad. These delusions need to be exposed, and as Tony Judt has said, just because bigots and antisemites have made similar types of charges about neoconservative influence should not stop serious people from reckoning with facts.
Gore at Clinton's Party
But the political story of the day was Al Gore's performance during a Global Warming panel. (The sartorial story was his weird, dominatrix-y black leather boots.)
On a stage at the Sheraton in midtown, in front of Mr. Clinton, Tom Golisano, Colin Powell and hundreds of representatives from the business, donor and non-profit community, Mr. Gore delivered an impassioned speech that brought the audience to its feet and had people chattering about what a great President he would have made -- and maybe could still make.
"This crisis is the by far the most dangerous we have ever faced in the entire history of human civilization but it also provides the greatest opportunity," he said with increasing volume. "We are coming together as a Global civilization in our lifetime we have to get our act together and this climate crisis, may, I believe, does, gives us the opportunity to rise, to gain the moral authority and gain the vision not to become the self-destructive, selfish generation, but to become the next greatest generation."
Clinton then made sure that Gore stood next to Branson when the billionaire announced his donation to the whole crowd. Gore, conspicuously elated as he signed his name with Clinton onto the pledge, said that it was "like the old days."
--Jason HorowitzElsewhere: Rockstar, Cowboy
Republican governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas says Hillary Clinton will be tough for Republicans to defeat in 2008. He says Hillary has "rock-star quality that she brings just by walking into a room and sucking the oxygen out of it."
As does Newt Gingrich in an interview to air tonight on NY1: "She had the courage to say to the Left Wing of her party: 'that's wrong.' Any Republican who thinks they can beat her with a cheap and nasty campaign is crazy."
The Times new-ish political blog on national politics has Colin Powell's letter to John McCain where Powell writes, "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism."
John Faso put up a website so people can calculate how much their taxes will increase under a Governor Spitzer.
Jeanine Pirro and Andrew Cuomo have begun to debate about debates already.
Pirro's husband got a speeding ticket. Again. This time, doing 51 in a 25 mph zone near a school.
Senator Serph Maltese's 101-year-old uncle passed away.
The Brennan Center wonders how many handicapped voters were disenfranchised on Tuesday.
One-time gubernatorial candidate Pat Manning, who is running for re-election to the Assembly, lost his Independence Republican Party primary.
Eliot Spitzer, take note: Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has just taken the "new sheriff in town" theme to a whole new level.
Hillary.org has the victory speech KT McFarland never delivered. read more »
And pictured above is an Assembly candidate who used Photoshop to get some help from Hillary.
-- Azi PaybarahCondoleezza Rice's Blind Ambition
We had a one-word description of the National Security Council... and that one word was "dysfunctional" ....I asked myself many times: "How that could be? How could a woman as competent as Dr. Rice seemed to be—indeed, Secretary Powell had told me she was a sort of a protégé of his—[head up an organization that] could be so dysfunctional?" ... I'd say simply she had her eye on the prize, and the prize was a Cabinet position—and a particular Cabinet position, secretary of state—and as national security adviser, one works one's ambitions to achieve that position.
I'm not saying that in a pejorative sense. That's the way people work, more by establishing an intimacy with the president than by bringing discipline and balance to a decision-making process, because when you bring discipline and balance to a decision-making process, you oftentimes have to make an enemy of people—of the vice president, for example; you have to make an enemy of the secretary of defense; and on occasion you may even have to speak truth to power with regard to the president of the United States....
If your main goal is building intimacy... when it comes time to discipline the process, when it comes time to make the process work, So when it comes time to tolerate dissent and allow balance into the discussions, you don't always side for that discipline and that balance, but you get your job.
Why Rudy Will Leave the Bubble
RudyBlogger reacted to Jason Horowitz's piece about the beginning of the end of the post-9/11 Giuliani bubble by comparing the former mayor to Douglas MacArthur and Colin Powell -- national heroes who wound up sidelined after opting for "popularity over a down-and-dirty run for the presidency."
The conclusion:
Our political system has but one currency and that is power. Not popularity, but power. And you either have it or you don't. (Certainly Rudy-watchers must concede that power is something Hizzoner understands.) When it comes to making your mark in history, there is still no substitute for the Presidency.-- Josh Benson
Rudy a Republican!
Because he is pro-choice, pro-gun control, and pro-gay rights, some poll-watchers have speculated that he will never survive the GOP primary process. But the mayor said he would not forsake his party.
So much for that fun theory.
Also, at the same event -- the World Business Forum in Chicago -- Colin Powell criticized Bush for failing to commit enough troops to Iraq (but said nothing, apparently, about WMDs). And Bill Clinton offered up praise for Al Gore.
-- Lizzy RatnerColin Powell, Profile in Cowardice
But when Wilkerson was asked why Colin Powell didn't do more to stop this juggernaut when he had a chance, he grinned and said his old boss had asked him not to respond to this sort of question. I will say, Wilkerson went on to say, Powell likes to work inside, behind the scenes, not outside throwing stones. (I'll put the exact quote in when the Institute sends me the transcript)
That's no answer. Powell's collapse in the runup to the Iraq war, so that he might continue to work on the inside, is one of the great tragedies of our time. If he really wants to help out, he should follow the fine military model set by Wilkerson and the many retired generals who have begun attacking Rumsfeld publicly, and say something about the war, now, when a change in policy might actually save lives.
I assume he is planning to wait 30 years ala Robert McNamara to wring his hands when it doesn't matter, and salve his conscience in old age...
Events for April 6, 2006
Then, Al Sharpton's annual National Action Network Convention kicks off at the Sheraton with a panel discussion, "Are Blacks Projected Fairly in the Media?"; and Colin Powell speaks to students at Harlem's Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change.
In the evening, IND hosts a candidates forum for Brooklyn's 11th district candidates at the Kane Street Synagogue.
DL21C holds its election series kick-off event with Eliot Spitzer.
And Senator Liz Krueger speaks at a panel on new voting machines for New York State at the Community Church of New York.
—Nicole Brydson
