Why Colin Powell Will Never Be President
Powell Says U.N. Speech a 'Blot' on Record
Sep 08 6:04 PM US/Eastern
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday his prewar speech to the United Nations accusing Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction was a "blot" on his record.
Too many old soldiers remember a "spineless" rap from the Vietnam Era. Seems to still be in place and functioning.
Sep 08 6:04 PM US/Eastern
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday his prewar speech to the United Nations accusing Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction was a "blot" on his record.
Too many old soldiers remember a "spineless" rap from the Vietnam Era. Seems to still be in place and functioning.
posted by BigBubba at 4:24 PM
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27 Comments:
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Hey, you are just another blog spammer pond scum. Go away and get a life.
Sounds like Colin is fishing for "sympathy" and really wants to run. "I was duped into making that speech." I put him in the same club as McCain.
-FJ
Oh, gentlemens, is it so implausible when our career public servants pretend to be fallible human beings once in a while? When they stray a mite from the party line, is it such a sin? When they admit that, yes, as we suspected, they were just holding the bag for their masters?
Perhaps these old soldiers are just trying a little misdirection a la Sun Tzu?
norm,
If only they were as clever as you paint them. Like most "good" Republicans, Powell was raised in the "faded" tradition of Achilles, not Odysseus. You should know that! Hermes whispers in Hillary's ears, not Powell's.
Powell has managed to convince himself that he has done something wrong for which he must atone. He reads newspapers. He hears the voices of his "peers". He is an "honorable" man. But there's just no "there" there. He's the people's man, and not his own man. His drum marks no beat. He listens to drummers. He "follows".
-FJ
...as for McCain, I think he lost his "resistance" to external influences the minute his boots hit the ground in the good ole USA. I honor him and his service. But he can no longer "lead". He listens too much. He needs to be able to block out the noise sometimes. His experiences have made him "overcompensate".
Wow! A COMPLIMENT rendered the Bush Administration from the duck! A first by my marking method. Sounds like the Bushies demonstrate LEADERSHIP characteristics, unlike Collin "blow".
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Since you've paid the Bush Administration this rare compliment, perhaps I should point out what I feel to be your failing in understanding them. Have you ever read any of the "spurious" works by Plato? Lesser Hippias comes to mind. It makes an argument that parallels one in a non-spurious work by Plato about whether a mathematician would be a more convincing liar about mathematical subjects than one who was not a very good mathematician (The title of the dialogue escapes me at the present moment), and other similar arguments where he asks whether people "intentionally" do bad things, or simply make bad choices.
-FJ
norm,
William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"...
Bru. …Stoop, Romans, stoop,
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords:
Then walk we forth, even to the market-place,
And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads,
Let's all cry 'Peace, freedom and liberty!'
Cas. Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!
Bru. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now on Pompey's basis lies along
No worthier than the dust!
Cas. --So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be call'd
The men that gave their country liberty.
Dec. What, shall we forth?
Cas. --Ay, every man away:
Brutus shall lead; and we will grace his heels
With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.
….
Ant. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge+,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
Who do you admire in this play (if anybody)?
-FJ
Norm, to the best of my knowledge Ben Franklin was absolutely correct when he said, "To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish."
I believe what is really devilish is the total unwillingness of partisan politicians to accept the unescapable premise that it is possible for a human with good intentions to err. They compound their ignorance by peddling demagoguery to the people as if they also are human but would not have made a mistake under similar circumstances.
Farmer John, hearing voices is probably an affliction shared by many politicians. I am betting Howard Dean "hears voices."
Mr. Ducky, perhaps you may want to check out your understanding of legal procedures. Grand Jury indictments do not mean that the indicted are guilty of anything. In this particular case the guilt is that the Republicans whooped the demoracists a** and took control of the state government. Ronnie Earl, partisan politician that he is, decided to show his indignation in the courtroom. Texas will remain a Republican state while rank and file Republicans, like Big Bubba, will continue to vote for the Republican candidates. Nobody bought my vote. Texas demoracists brought this disaster on theirselves when they decided to jump on Howard "Aaaargh" Dean's and Ted "Hip Flask Museum" Kennedy's sinking ship of demoracism. Texans are not impressed by their BS.
BB,
I think the problem with ALL Democrats SINCE Watergate is that the voices in their heads are getting LOUDER. They've lost control of the Volume setting. I think it has something to do with "personal" self-control. ;-)
-FJ
Mr. Ducky, the New Orleans school bus photo was widely posted on the internet, but the source was the national media like this Scripps location for the photo.
You need to get your head out of your lower rectal casing housing area and smell the New Orleans toxic brew. Blanco and Nagin made some poor choices and are actively engaged in finger pointing. The whole controversy is being fueled by lacklaster intellects, like you, and many in the national media.
Big Bubba
On the "Honorable" men...
ANTHONY
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest --
For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men --
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And sure he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!
Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
norm, methinks you favor Brutus, but would prefer to be Anthony
-FJ
Our founding father, John Adam's, wife used to sign some of their personal correspondence "Portia". Portia was Brutus' faithful wife, in whom he confided all his plans to eliminate Caesar. I suspect John Adams thought himself a modern "Brutus", and George III, Caesar.
-FJ
Anthony, went on to create a popular uprising, that eventually resulted in his own death, and Octavian (Augustus) rising to become the Head of a new Roman Principate. In other words, the Republic was dead. The "plot" to "restore" the Republic had failed. But perhaps this was because the conspirators had acted too soon. Had Caesar "accepted" the thrice offered crown, Antony could never had swayed the population to "revolution". They would have seen that, as Brutus had told them, Caesar WAS ambitious. And that Brutus WAS an "honorable" man.
methinks Powell a lot like Brutus. Honorable, but impatient. Not quite a Cato. He hears "voices". "Run Colin, run" they say. Like Cassius' scrolls to Brutus.
-FJ
John Wilkes Booth,
"Sic Semper Tyrannus!"
I wonder which character he favored? How many times had HE performed the play and rehearsed this act during his professional career?
-FJ
Can there be any doubt that Shakespeare was a genius? But let's all join in banning the Great Books of Western Civilization, and replace them with the "modern" equivalents from twentieth century "popular" authors... Joyce et al... which encourage all plebians to vie and contend for power using pen vice sword to achieve their ends. It is much more civilized they say, and it is... until post-moderns begin taking to the "street" again. That is why we "treasure" the "old" books. For civilizations rise AND fall. Progress is merely an "illusion".
-FJ
Farmer, I hope you do not mean to suggest that George W. Bush did/does not hear such voices?
So is it the diminishing returns from a surfeit of genius mass-produced by our culture that bothers you regarding modern authors? The idea that "author-ity" has become more common and thus less effective? Isn't this indicative of culture in general? Aren't we now coming through the age of Irony, on our transformative way to Metaphor (and therefore, Mythology) again? Wasn't Mr. Joyce instrumental in helping this transformation along? Doesn't this tickle you?
I should correct the above post to read "on our transformative way back to metaphor"
Does it tickle me? Pains me would be more accurate. The transformative road back would not have been necessary, had we simply kept the original metaphors which EVERYONE already understood.
That the visual symbolism was well understood by the ancients and early moderns, noble and commoner alike can be seen in the setting of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". He was killed after the Romans had celebrated the Lupercalia . But the festival is misplaced in the actual Roman calendar... and Shakespeare does so for purpose and effect. To remind his audience that the honorable men were wolf-like yet not "quite" wolves.
The surfeit of genius displayed by Joyce was to simply re-write, tone-down, and de-contextualize the audience from the originals. It's like a bad re-make of a great Hollywood movie... like modern adaptations of Romeo and Juliet to West Side Story so as to de-temporalize the audience, narrow their time horizon, and make them feel that Modern Times are somehow unique and NOT a part of an hisorical continuum. This was done for the political purpose of re-writing their tables of values and MAN-IPULATING them.
And so "wow", great work! You've become G_d's. Creators of a weak and pity-full modern race of clay, NOT iron men. And so our age is not ironic, it's clay-mach-ic. With LUCK our "metal" will return to iron. But is suspect we're in for a LONG stretch of Mud.
And btw, REAL authority is VERY uncommon, ALWAYS was. Only now, it has also become completely invisible. Sure, there were MANY poseurs in amongst the old aristocratic elites. Now everyone is a poseur. No one recognizes authority anymore. Not even a police uniform can command respect. And you smile and can say this is a good thing?
-FJ
And yes norm, I agree, George hears voices. But I'm not sure Cheney does (but NOT if Gulf War I's "HALT" was his idea). Hence you see periods of Back-bone and Jello in this same admin.
-FJ
FJ,
Civilizations rise AND fall, as yopu point out. The industrial and post-industrial age speeds accelerates this process, but also "buffers" it. Thus, ours may rise, fall, and rise again without us missing a day of work. This is Joyce's genius, your whipping post. We could never STAY in the age of myth, though no doubt you will cling to it(perhaps rightly so, I'll grant you--we have indeed been too long in the age of irony). Must go home, but will try to write more.
norm
But why hasten the fall? For sport and fun? To live in interesting times? Why doesn't the Left live their OWN lives instead? The freedom to call their own shots was too much for them? They have to run everyone's lives to feel important now? They had to have everyone's acceptance and approval? They had to be legally entitled to pursue deviance?
-FJ
The Left left Isaiah Berlin and liberalism to pursue Positive liberty. To play Nanny, and parent, and molder of minds. The Left consciously DECIDED to detroy the nuclear family (Marcuse). The Left decided that Determinism was true and that free will was a sham. But anatomy and neurology PROVES them wrong. Yet they persist in their mistaken belief's. They know its' a combination of nature and nurture, and have done everything in their power to destroy nurture. And now, with genetic research, they're going after genetics BIG time. The GREAT equalizer.
Have fun sailing the stars with Khan, Capt. Zulu. Don't worry, you'll get used to the bug in your ear.
Why didn't you pursue TRUTH instead. Right, truth is relative and can't be known anyway. G_d your side is tiresome. And as always, WRONG.
-FJ
FJ, love the Plato/Nietzsche trajectory of your pendulum. But you lose me with the Star Trek. I'm not that big a dork.
Please don't decry relativism and then quote liberally from Nietzsche. That's what you get when you declare Nobodaddy's dead. Or do you get to have it both ways, too?
I am a Catholic democrat like my man, Ducky. But I am neither a socialist nor a relativist--though I will cop to being a "relativist" when it comes to "socialism." "Government" is not always a bad word. My politics, to the best of their ability, follow the Founding Fathers. But I'm comfortable in the zone where "opposites" are "generating."
I don't hope for civilzation's fall; I work for its "flowering." Nevertheless, we live in a time of diminishing returns in leaders, of heros. Crucial point: It is not that there are so few. It's that there are so many.
What you miss norm, is that Nietzsche's arguments are actually AGAINST relativism and the nihilism it generates, to show mankind the results, before the fact of such a pursuit. In so doing he deliberately plays Zeno to Plato's Parmenides.
And here's where your mistaken, you think that we are creating "leaders". You obvioulsy do NOT know what leadership is. It's achieving good RESULTS. You're creating intellectual cripples that THINK they know things. They are all intention without knowledge of how to create "effect". If generation from opposites is NECESSARY how can NOT the good leader be sometimes "cruel"? Your side can only use half a toolset, for it shuns the half it labels evil. And evil is the function for which government exists, to "punish" the foe and deviant (when appropriate).
And every leader that DOES emerge, is immediately torn down by poseurs. The left fears real leadership. They HATE it. And so, the result is that "eventually" ONE leader will emerge. The new Fuhrer, idol of the masses. You create the very conditions necessary for totalitarianism to emerge... for no "other" leaders can emerge to challenge them without being torn apart by the very masses they seek to protect. Isn't THAT the lesson of Julius Caesar? Brutus' concern was NOT for himself, but the public weal. This leads to the Principate and Octavian.
-FJ
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