First off, thanks for your informative post slamming Colin Powell, for its intrinsic value and for the discussions it triggered.
Uncle Tom Powell Stumps for Massah Bush
Some words or phrases have unsaid hyper-connotations in society that can be used to dilute your message.
I call them "semantic bombs". Somebody drops one and no one cares what was said or its intent. The point is ignored while everyone stands around discussing the hole made by the "bomb" and the outrage of someone handling "explosives" without whatever respect they feel that "bomb" should have.
For example if you are running for President and saying "Confederate flag".
When handling semantic bombs "safe to say" would be dependent on who heard you, what their understanding was of your intent, their perspective on what they perceived you to say, their willingness to use the semantic "explosion" to attack you with, etc.
Now to the topic of Colin Powell -
Groups and traditions often have a perceived set of values, based on the history, needs, and aspirations of that group or tradition.
Many people project certain values onto those who rise from within a certain group or tradition. For one who rises highest from that tradition, some expect them to continue carrying those values as if they were a sacred part of that person.
Colin Powell has disappointed many who for whatever reason believed those values were a part of him.
If those values ever were a part of him -
He has shown a willingness to lay them aside for what he considers his "duty" to do a job asked of him.
He apparently doesn't have the moral backbone of some, such as Cyrus Vance, who have held that position and resigned from it when they were asked to support policies their principles would not allow them to.
For those that perceive such "laying aside" as a moral weakness, the mistake Colin made would have been to agree to work for a group as morally corrupt as the Bush administration.
Everything that followed from that point would have been predictable, in their eyes duty excuses anything. Maybe it is a from his background as a soldier, they certainly use that concept to justify their actions.
It is a tradeoff he is apparently comfortable with. It continues to be his decision if he wants to be used by a nefarious group that would pare down any moral, ethical person to a caricature of what they once were or perceived to be.