Colin Powell Discusses His Endorsement of Barack Obama

I'm not sure how this will play. After all, many people will rightly say that Powell utterly relinquished any claim to integrity or public regard when he went to the UN and lied about the reasons for invading Iraq.

Still, another way of looking at it is that someone who has been up to his elbows in the criminality of the Bush regime, and has now endorsed the opposition to the third Bush term, speaks with a legitimacy that many lack. To the extent that Powell has credibility left with people oriented to the military, including both active duty and former members of the military, I think this is a great thing.

I thinki it's also significant that Powell specifically singles out the deceptive, negative advertising that the McCain people have engaged in, and he engages in none of the pretense that McCain isn't responsible for it that has become so popular among people who have trumpeted their "disappointment" in McCain. (Case in point: David Brooks.)

Here is a particularly well-reasoned statement on the latest meme they're trying to push, the idea that Obama is a socialist:

The message this week is that we're going to call him a socialist. Mr. Obama's now a socialist because he dares to suggest that we ought to look at the tax structure that we have.

Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to the people who paid them, in roads, and airports, and hospitals, and schools, and taxes are necessary for the common good, and there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is, and who should be paying more or who should be paying less, and for us to say that that makes you a socialist is I think an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate.

He goes on to say that even though he doesn't like paying taxes, he also doesn't like trillion dollar deficits and the other things that Bush's tax policies have brought us. Contrast that with Palin's statement that it isn't patriotic to pay taxes.