There is a tendency among us liberals to embrace critics of White House policy wholesale. Maybe we feel that we need voices that likely republican voters will accept? Who knows. Like a good anti-Bush rant from known xenophobe Lou Dobbs, we like it if it hurts the Administration. As long as the clumsy grenade of opinion causes some collateral damage to Bush it was worth a fling. That's a tendency I've seen at least.
So I'm writing out of curiosity how people feel about Colin Powell's recent revelation that he knew the claims he made before the UN were false at the time he made them.
Do people realize how egregious this is? Or do they embrace the general criticism Powell aims at Cheney:
When I pressed further as to why the president played up the Iraq nuclear threat, Powell said it wasn't the president: "That was all Cheney." A convenient response for a Bush family loyalist, perhaps, but it raises the question of how the president came to be a captive of his vice president's fantasies.
I would argue that Powell is a worse human being than Cheney. And that includes all the disgusting policies Cheney has enacted. Go ahead and run down the list - the torture, the war planning, smearing of Joe Wilson, closed door energy policy. You name it. I believe Powell is worse.
Much ado has been made of Powell's internal power struggles with Cheney, and how he was the voice of wisdom and tried warn Bush of invading. But guess what, when it came time, he was willing to lie to us for them. And I believed him.
I was in support of the war because I believed Powell's testimony. I knew the man's reputation and I saw him make what I believe to be a compelling case for why we had to invade.
It was never Cheney, but Powell who is ultimately responsible for the war in Iraq. You can line up Cheney's appearances on meet the press where he lies effortlessly and evokes the most wild eyed vision of mushroom clouds, but ultimately it was Powell who sold us the war. He convinced moderates that it had to be done, and so tipped the struggle of America's conscience in favor of the war.
Powell has named the day he appeared before the UN with his vial of salt and half-baked evidence as the lowest point is his career. I think that is a horridly selfish point of view. I believe that day will go down as one of the saddest days in American history. It was when a man of presumably good conscience betrayed the public for his loyalty to the president.
When the chips were down, Powell betrayed us and every single soldier that has died since March of 2003. The blood is on his hands more than any other official because we trusted him the most.
So when Powell comes crawling up like a lame dog to air the pitiful vanity of his precious yet torn conscience to a staunch liberal like Scheer, I say we grab his nose and rub it in the enormous pile of shit his cowardice has created for us.
What do you think?