It’s sad to see Colin Powell, appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State by Republican Presidents, continuing to attack Republicans as racist:
While continuing to identify as a Republican, former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday criticized the GOP for a series of racist attacks against President Barack Obama.
“There’s also a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party,” Powell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities.”
(fyi, Palin’s explanation of her comment is here, h/t Gateway Pundit)
Powell’s history is just wrong.
How racist is the Republican Party? So racist that in addition to his numerous appointments by Republican presidents, Powell could have been a serious Republican contender for President had he wanted it. Referring to Powell and Obama, respectively, Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson wrote on December 30, 2006:
A black man has led the world’s most powerful military machine and stood a good chance of winning the presidency on the Republican ticket had he run; another is now a leading challenger for the Democratic nomination.
Of course, Powell did not run, for personal family reasons not because of Republican racism. Powell was out of step with many Republican policy positions on social issues, but his race was not part of that opposition. Powell rejected Republicans, not the other way around.
Powell also has current events wrong. So wrong that he’s profoundly ignorant as to what is happening in the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement, and the rising stardom of non-whites within the party, something not matched on the Democratic side.
This somewhat stunning column by John Avlon at CNN shows the GOP’s surprising edge on diversity (h/t @TheAnchoress):
Everybody knows the Republican Party is basically an all-white bastion, right? After all, even Colin Powell condemned the “dark vein of intolerance” that has flowed through his party since the post-civil rights era political realignment.
Now with President Barack Obama leading the Democrats into a second term — buoyed by overwhelming victory margins among African-Americans and Hispanics — it’s clear the GOP has some serious catching up to do.
This is why it might surprise you to hear that Republicans are by far the more diverse party when it comes to statewide elected officials such as senators and governors. On this front, they leave Democrats in the dust. And that’s why the GOP actually has a greater depth of diversity on their potential presidential bench looking to 2016 and beyond.
It’s counterintuitive but true. Numbers don’t lie. Let’s start with a look at the governors, the traditional launching pad of presidential ambitions.
Among the Republican ranks is Brian Sandoval, the Hispanic governor of Nevada. The 49-year-old former federal judge took on a corrupt conservative incumbent and is now racking up an impressive reform record in his first term. Likewise, there is New Mexico’s Gov. Susana Martinez, a former district attorney who remains popular in her state despite an otherwise Democratic tide.
How many Hispanic governors do the Democrats have in office? Zero.
Read the rest of the column for some more facts. Here are some of the images from the CNN Column:
Sen. Tim Scott was appointed last year, representing South Carolina.
Ted Cruz celebrates his victory in U.S. Senate race in Texas.Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is considered a presidential contender for 2016.Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is thought to be a potential presidential contender.Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina is of Indian-American descent.
Republican Brian Sandoval is the Hispanic governor of Nevada.
Also keep in mind that Democrats make a special effort to defeat non-white Republicans, like the focus on defeating Mia Love and Allen West.
None of this means that Republican outreach is over. But to ignore what is going on is pure ignorance. As Avlon put it:
But Democrats should not rest on their laurels after Obama. Their lack of statewide-elected diverse Democrats is striking and could provide an opening for Republicans in the next generation (if conservatives don’t keep alienating that community with anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation).
The old stereotypes don’t hold when looking at the facts — Republicans have been quietly making inroads into communities of color, even if that hasn’t yet registered in overall voting patterns. And rising Republican stars such as Rubio, Jindal, Sandoval, Scott, Haley, Cruz and Martinez are reasons for optimism as we look toward the future of American politics.
Colin Powell has a deep vein of ignorance about what is happening in the Republican Party.
Notice I said “deep vein” because if I had said “dark vein” that would be racist, right Colin?
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Regardless of your ability, when you experience the benefits of affirmative action, you will always have an inferiority complex and feel rage at those who belittled you by robbing you of dignity by enabling you without regard to your ability.
In Obama’s case, it has manifested itself as rage and as a superiority complex. (How’s that for irony.)In Powell’s case, he seems to have an inferiority complex — and quieter rage, but rage nonetheless.
He blew it.
Colin Powell is a perfect example of a product of affirmative action. He long exceeded the Peter Principle of rising to a level of incompetence of which the final example of that was the hasty end of the first Gulf war over the objection of Schwarzkopf.
I kind of think that Allen West would agree that Powell never left the plantation…
So lets see here. The new formula seems to be: When some people dont agree with my every position + Im not getting my way with everything = racism
powell is acting like he always has.
why anyone ever respected him is beyond me.
many people in frankfurt milcom (except his officer friends) knew he was a racist all along.
Powell is the finest example of a 5th column in the GOP. I don’t think he has gotten over the wool pulled over his eyes when it came to intelligence about WMDs in Iraq and I think he feels Bush is to blame. Now he just wants revenge and will say anything to get it and the LSM is more than willing to give him a platform to do it.
CB – I was writing the thread below yours before I saw your post. I don’t think “wool pulled over his eyes” is an appropriate term since wool was not pulled over anyone’s eyes. WMD’s were thought to be real and the intelligence was overwhelmingly accepted by both Republicans and Democrats. To accept that “wool was pulled over his eyes” is to accept the lie that Bush lied. In fact, maybe Syria is using some of those WMD’s at this time.
I don’t think so either. I should have put quotes or turn off the sarcasm when I wrote this. No matter what he seems to have an ax to grind about something.
“Wool pulled over one’s eyes” will now be coined a racist term by the left.
Sheep are racists, anyway.
the WMDs WERE real and there unless you subscribe to nukes being the only WMD there is.
nuke/bio/chem are all WMDs.
I think my last sentence implies everything you just wrote.
I think Powell’s primary problem has been trying to get back in good graces with those who perceived the Bush administration as criminal for the Iraq War. He has been trying to separate his involvement with them for years by making excuses for his actions at the expense of the others. The more he debases them and the GOP, the better he he thinks he appears (Christie has this same complex, and I think Justice Roberts does too). The need to be liked overrides his already weak convictions. People of conviction in the GOP are rare and Powell is just one among many. Most are always groping for the right words to say, not because they’re right, but because they want to appease the person asking them the question.
My problem with Powell is that, in my opinion, his military education seems to be lacking. Why? According to several articles I have read and some books he is the origin of the concept of, “You break it, you bought it” in terms of Iraq (and it appears that it was being used in regard to Afganistan as well). The purpose of war in my opinion is to respond to aggressive actions against you by going into the other guys “home” and breaking up so much stuff that he is unable to come back and give you trouble. Yet, according to Powell destroying the enemies capabilities to wage war against you isn’t enough. You have to rebuild his infrastructure so that when he gets weapons from his buddies that he can come after you again. WTF!? Yes, we were in Germany and Japan after WWII, but the key is we were there AFTER both countries surrendered and we were there to ENSURE they didn’t become aggressive again. Regarding the middle east, it appears that this idea is helping the terrorists NOT hurting them. Makes me wonder what the heck we are doing, and also makes me understand why some liken this “War on terror to Vietnam”. The troops make progress and some politician goes and screws it up. No wonder so many troops are frustrated.
1. With all due respect to Colin Powell, I question whether he can feel the pulse of the country from his home in McLean, VA and his bicoastal speaking engagements and board meetings.
2.
Well, having read some conservative rage against illegal aliens, I’m not prepared to say he’s completely wrong. (I’m not talking about a desire to secure the border. I’m talking about rage directed against the illegals—and conspicuously not directed against the ruling-class malefactors who invite them.) I do believe that Powell exaggerated a diminishing problem and his comment did more harm than good.
3. While I do not rule out that MSM coverage was deliberately deceptive, the few online videos I saw of the GOP convention delegates looked pretty white to me. Others’ perception may vary.
4. Which brings me to my reservation about Bill’s point. Minorities as GOP senators and governors are well and good, but a whole bunch of Republican minorities in lower-ranking state & municipal offices would be a lot better in the long term. They may exist without my being aware of them, but I haven’t seen data.
5. Quibble as you will, the way the Democrats locked up the minority vote—black, Hispanic, Asian—in November indicates that something isn’t as it should be. IMO it comes back to what Newt said on Meet the Press: someehow the GOP is inadequately relating to the issues American face in their individual lives. Especially Americans of melanin.
Get real. Illegal immigration is not a social or racial issue.
Illegal aliens are a national security threat and an economic threat to the US.
A real and present danger.
And illegals are also a political threat when there is NO Computerized Voter Registry and NO Voter Photo ID requirement to vote.
1. Well, it’s heartening to realize that none, absolutely none, of the resentment against illegal aliens is race-based.
I had no idea that the Republican Party had evolved to such a high level of virtue.
Should I take it that without leftist demagoguery, racism in America would be extinct?
2. The foregoing is, of course, sarcasm.
3. The fact that the Democrats exaggerate and demagogue racial issues should not be a pretext for ignoring them. (Btw, taking a laissez faire approach to an issue is not the same as ignoring it.)
Your argument is circular — which is a big problem considering it does not start from a strong point.
Sorry gs, I’m not buying. Here’s my problem: You appear to use the same tools as do many progressives/Dems. Your argument, at least as you tell it in your comments, is based on some ‘feeling’ and not fact. I would never dispute there are racists nor racism in any large group, political and otherwise. For example, I’ve more than once seen use of terms in blogs that are clearly intended to highlight race or mock it. Some may have referred to a ‘color’ of gums or lips in making reference to the president. Others may use the ‘wet’ term for those who cross the border. That is clearly racist.
While many may appear to be racist when ranting against illegal immigrants, it’s my experience that they are angry at the ‘illegal’ part and not the ‘immigrant’ part. That they may refer to the group as ‘Mexicans’ is an artifact of the true nationality of many and is heavily influenced by the narrative built by the compliant MSM and the Dems. (How often do we read or hear about Asians or Middle Easterners who overstay visas, for example? Practically never.) Those who rail against ‘illegals’, if truly racist, wouldn’t stop there. They would also rail against people ‘of melanin’ in positions of power, for if they were truly racist, wouldn’t the elected class be even more threatening than the migrant worker or the unemployed worker on welfare? It is exactly the welfare aspect that angers many. Not the melanin.
Or, perhaps you have some more concrete evidence of a significant level of racism from the angry group that you can point out for us.
1. Sorry gs, I’m not buying.
I’m not sure what it is I’m supposedly selling.
I submit that the vehemence of the reaction to my statements is in itself odd: as is the lack of indignation against the ruling class members who prosper from the presence of the illegals. Fury against the illegals; nary a peep against corporatists in high places who import the illegals and profit from their cheap labor.
2.
Don’t know what you mean by ‘truly racist’. The illegal alien is economic competition and so, in a sense, is Obamaphone Lady. Bobby Jindal isn’t going to take a carpenter’s job or drive down his wages.
How about the opposition to illegals by those thousands of Hispanics who are legal. Two groups especially vocal are those whose families have been here for generations, and those who became legal by following the law. The media seldom seek these groups out. It would ruin that “racist” story they so dearly love. It’s referred to as “suppression”, or the media’s version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
How about some conservative/GOP support for those people, who I suspect are intimidated by leftists within their communities? How about educating American Hispanics that their open-borders “leaders” will drive down their wages if given their way? How about telling American Asians that their conscientious hard work should not be debased by affirmative action?
I mean this with all sincerity: I have no idea what you’re babbling about, or how it remotely relates to what I wrote. These people don’t need support, or explaining to – they are not stupid. I just told you what many of them believe.
1. These people don’t need support, or explaining to – they are not stupid. I just told you what many of them believe.
This blog has discussed how minorities get savaged for wandering off the Democrat plantation.
2. I mean this with all sincerity: I have no idea what you’re babbling about, or how it remotely relates to what I wrote.
Inside a cocoon, sound gets muffled and distorted.
3. The minority vote counted in November. Guess which party those voters resoundingly rejected. For a hint and a surprise, watch President Romney’s State of the Union address to the new Republican Congress.
The more I hear Colin Powell talk, the less I want him anywhere near the presidency.
The more I hear Allen West talk, the more I’d love to see him as president.
Hear! Hear!!
Where Colin Powell has ended up is very sad. 25 years ago he was one of the most admired people in the country. Now he’s just another plantation steppin, fetchit black for racial fascism. Thank God for his wife who wisely kept him out of running for office.
not by many of us who served in frankfurt area in the 80’s.
Here is an image of my tentative and highly preliminary choice for the 2016 nomination, Susana Martinez.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I want to see her get reelected governor by a greater margin than she first won the office by.
There has been a PAID media campaign to try to shape public opinion against guns, against the GOP and to keep racism in the forefront, and to try to build up Obama’s ratings.
Powell was just cashing in on the opportunity.
Colin Powell has been a desk pushing General in the Army and a political general for way too long. The Army has always, since their dominance post WWII, been the change resistant part of the armed forces.
He rode the first Iraq war’s coattails far too long and he was always covering his back side. Now, sadly, he is just another LSM psuedo Republican trying to earn a buck by saying what the LSM wants their Republicans to say. He wasn’t a good battlefield General but he was a damn good DC paper pusher.
Colin Powell is as much a Republican nowadays as Charlie Crist is; he just hasn’t outed himself in public completely. He associates himself in public with Louis Farrakhan—this retired general and so-called “statesman” has become a four-star disgrace, with all due respect to our armed forces!
Colon Powell: it turns out his given name was quite prophetic.
The one thing I’ve learned in the last two election cycles is …
Beware the politician with a thin record
Obama came with his own personal narrative. Even Kohn McCain came with baggage that nobody saw coming. The list goes on and on …
Notice how Palin always fights back and almost always turns it back onto her critics because she does her homework. She refuses to be cowed by the rentaquote media responses (just like Thatcher in the UK) unlike many “conservatives” who are afraid of the media
Pisch, pisch. Michelle has bangs.
Colin Powell. As a minority myself, I used to hold his man in such high regard because he achieved such success in America.
Now I see him as a race baiting ignorant buffoon. And it really makes me wonder if this is how he really was. I even have a couple of his books that I bought some years back, they’re going in the trash. I would donate them to my local library except I don’t want others to read this race baiting fool’s fake words.
Colin Powell –> a gentler version of Al Sharpton but still the same race baiting personality.
I too find it sad to see Colin Powell destroying his legacy. When I hear his whining, I feel like saying, “Gee, man up, soldier!”
I believe his began to denigrate his legacy with his endorsement of Obama. Not with the actual endorsement, mind you, but with how he did it. During the 2008 campaign, Bill Kristol broke a story that Powell was going to endorse Obama and speak at the Democratic Convention. Powell’s office released a statement denying it, saying he had no plans to speak at the convention. (Note the Clintonian nature of that denial.) And then he went on one of the Sunday shows (Meet the Press, if I recall) at the 11th hour as if he had just made up his mind. He had obviously decided months earlier, but did what he did in a highly political manner, calculated to do maximum damage to McCain.
I’ll not pussyfoot around it, and simply state that I believe Powell endorsed Obama because of Obama’s race, though I can understand it. I’ll also note that when Obama was savaging the “Bush foreign policy”, he was really savaging the “Powell foreign policy”, a fact that seemed not to bother Powell, not that any crack reporter would bother to ask him about it.
At least he wasn’t a Marine. 😐
Powell is just a closet lefty, because really, what real use is he to the racist lefties unless he stays the “token” republican who goes after other repubs?
What an utterly disgusting race baiter he’s turned out to be.
and to go after Palin??? what a moron. If he’s so worried about this “vein”, where the hell was he when Colonel West was called all sorts of things, or Mia Love or Senator Tim Scott…. oh right I forget, its only the blacks that HE supports, those are the only blacks he will defend against supposedly racism, or just lose the race card to promote their agenda.
“use” not “lose”
Powell is an ungrateful bastard, biting the hand that raised him to curry favor with the sorry SOB who won’t give him a position of power that he wants. Plus, Powell is a coward. He could’ve run for office, and he knew the GOP RINO’s would’ve backed him all the way, but his idea of America as deeply racist was strong than his desire to be POTUS. That view of America as racist is what connects Obama and Powell, and there is nothing America can do or say that will alter their point of view.
A Bronx cheer to ’em both.
For years, Powell was called a sell-out by blacks, because he was military, he was a general officer and he was a Republican. Remember Harry Belefonte’s derisive remarks about him? That had to hurt on some level.
Now, he’s just trying to show that he isn’t a sell-out by… selling-out to the Democrats. He is no longer a pariah, but a prodigal son to the Dash-D’s.
1. Read the rest of the column for some more facts.
I (finally) did and found this:
2. Notice I said “deep vein” because if I had said “dark vein” that would be racist, right Colin?
To repeat, I don’t want to exaggerate the issue—but I am skeptical that the GOP is, ah, completely
whitepure as driven snow wrt minorities.3. While I haven’t agreed with Powell on many things, the more so as time passes, I do not forget that he said this:
But never mind: Real Conservatives™ can spot a traitor, sellout and coward when they see one.
Note too, that much of the Democrat’s “diversity” is courtesy of gerrymandered districts, guaranteed to elect an African American or Hispanic member.
Such is the nature of identity politics that the likes of Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Hank Johnson, Alcee Hastings, Jessie Jackson Jr. et al keep getting reelected by an electorate that have been essentially destroyed by Democratic “assistance” for the past 50-years.
Though she writes from a black Democrat perspective, the Atlanta Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker overlaps with you.
Stepping back and summing it up: Herr Obama and his fellow travelers have done a pretty good job of dividing the nation by race, class, socio-economic background and general all-around hatred.
It’s hard to believe a lot of the people who are following this lunatic to the point of no return really are actually doing so. (See: “Germany, 1932.”)It’s just as hard to understand how dense the GOP is in realizing who they’re dealing with in this guy. But this lunatic IS going to take us to the point of no return, and the GOP leaders we allow to remain in power are going to let him.
Get ready: a relentless fascist push by Obama and his allies is coming. It’s going to come fast, and it’s going to be too shocking for most people to realize it has come to pass. Union and other political goons will see to it that blood will run in the streets. And DHS will see to it that bullets will be flying everywhere. Then comes marital law. Then, kiss goodbye the Constitution and all the protections from tyranny it has long afforded us. Then hopefully, the civil war so many of us have predicted, will break out.
What is going to transpire these next four years will become ugly, infamous history. You’ll be as stunned as people in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany who were carted away for their political and religious beliefs (you and/or your friends and/or loved ones will be the cartees).
The writing is on the wall. Don’t ignore it, because all we have is the House — and Boehner and the schmucks behind him are guaranteed to @#$% it up and lose it to the Democrats in 2014. We have one last shot — and the House is it.
Further: you’ll see that the crazy Obama czars who so openly bragged about their Communism (Van Jones) or their Maoism (Anita Dunn) or the idea of genocide (Mark Lloyd, John Holdren) meant what they said.
Maybe Obama even has a spot for Colon Powell in all this — in the manufactured crisis, quickly appointing Powell head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to avoid a military coup.
“Diversity” is just another term for “smoke and mirrors.” When certain groups (too many to name here) want all eyes to be focused elsewhere, when they don’t have a valid argument for their “stuff,” they invoke “diversity” concerns.
Maybe Colin Powell, in his quaint civilian life, is hanging around with a non-diverse crowd of bigots – intemperate black bigots. You know the kind: “you’re not really black until you hate the white man.”
Off topic, Gun control:
On the one hand Obama’s one-way gun control bully pulpit rhetoric is meant to take our eyes off of spending and debt while seeking to demonize his opponents – law-abiding conservatives. More smoke and mirrors.
On the other hand, to remake America into his image so as to receive more worship and praise from the world media, Obama must disarm citizens (including disarming their religion beliefs). He must make citizens completely dependent on him for all things including personal security and to do this he must confiscate all private property (land, money, guns, legal rights). In fact, if Obama can create enough chaos he will use marshall law to do everything he wants to do – for our “good.”
Obama can pass all the laws he wants but there will be MANY people who will keep their guns. The bigger the government grows the bigger the arsenal will grow – the Second Amendment is kicking in and it will help defend us from the encroachment and coercion of government.
I am utterly weary of identity politics. Diversity, to the Democrat party, is based solely on skin tone; or more recently, sexual identity. Diversity is: age, education, income, dis/ability, religion, and other traits. We have allowed ourselves to be pigeonholed to whatever trait the Dems find useful that week. Gay? Black? Bitter clinger? They will make it so you fit their current narrative.
I am white, female, hetero, wife, mother, conservative, homeschooler, have an advanced education, and a small business owner. At any given time, those traits are either hailed or vilified by the Dems and the MSM.
Sick of identity politics.
^^That sure hits the nail on the head. Exactly the “type” of person the liberals simply have no political “use” for…sadly. The progressive agenda demands usefulness of its subgroups. Nothing they seem to like more than “groups” that they can protect and later enslave so they vote a particular way come November.
Its strange what the basic argument seems to be with liberals and conservatives.
Conservatives say simply…be the best you can be. Were here to stay out of your personal journey.
Liberals seem to say..stick with us and be fed and clothed as we protect you the same way endangered species are protected. Why weve reinvented the laws of nature/jungle to the point that any notion of survival of the fitest no longer applies along with an associated economic scheme to handicap the more fit members of society.
The new “kings of the jungle” are those least likely to succeed in any natural enviroment absent government “protections”.
I think it would be illuminating if someone were to sit down with Mr. Powell, and probe his information set. I would be interested to know what are the sources of his news. If he’s getting his information from some combination of the Washington Post and the New York Times, his comments make sense, because he is proceeding from flood of malinformation published by those two “news” organizations, along with certain of our national broadcasters.
For example, I would frame it this way: “If Colin Powell believes what Rachel Maddow says about what Republicans want to do to school children, does that make Colin Powell ignorant, or Rachel Maddow a liar?”
Naturally, I would say both. I know a fine educator who thinks that Rachel Maddow is wonderful, and that Republicans (ewww!) are out to destroy our schools. Nothing could be further from the truth than this, but I unearthed the core of my friend’s beliefs, when Rachel Maddow and her buddies swamped the web with utter garbage mischaracterizing what Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton both had to say on the subject.
My point is that there are specific names associated with specific lies, and they can be traced.
That’s when the cultist element kicks in — if you try to argue facts, you’ll be attacked personally.
Messing with a cultists denial (or any addict’s, for that matter), is tough territory.
1. As noted in the post, Lousiana’s Republican governor is an American of melanin. The Louisiana Republican Party has changed in the years since it ran David Duke for governor and senator during the early 1990s.
But to claim that the people who pushed for Duke’s nominations, and who voted for him, are completely absent from the GOP is naive. At best, it’s naive.
2. The Left’s race-baiting is deplorable. The Card Game posts are right to call it out and mock it.
However, a storm of indignation erupted when I suggested that we exercise a bit of care to maintain our side of the street. That reaction is…eye-opening.