Powell endorses Obama as 'transformational'

More bad news for McCain:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081019/pl_politico/14714


Abner

 

Rush Limbaugh has already chalked it up to race.

 

Rush Limbaugh is a twit.

 

He is also a convicted drug user and therefore not worthy of any opinion. While he railed against treatment for drug-addicted poor folk, he quickly said rehab was the best way for him to overcome his addiction. Hypocrite!

 

I think that Powell doesn't like Bush and is projecting that dislike onto Republicans in general.

But Limbaugh's right, race was probably a major factor too.

Blacks look like they will be block-voting for Obama by something like 90%. Many seem to see the election of a black president as an event that will transform their race's standing in America. Powell has said similar things himself, so there's no reason to think that he doesn't view Obama's candidacy that way.

 

If that was the case, he would have endorsed him from the beginning. In his eyes, Obama has finally proven himself worthy of his endorsement.

 

Barack Obama is an admitted past drug user of marijuana and cocaine, so I guess he's also not worthy of any opinion?

I'm no fan of Rush Limbaugh, but it's always revealing when the "compassionate" and "tolerant" left positively eviscerates someone for personal failings when their political viewpoints don't dovetail with the left's agenda.

 

OnMyWay,

I agree with you and my former party (Republicans) have brought the "hammer of change" down on themselves.

 

You make a great point. I am not too worried about someone who used marijuana at a previous time in their life. The cocaine use is news to me, but unless you are poor and a minority nobody really takes cocaine use very seriously, though they should. The question is when did Obama use the cocaine - recently or back in college?

Besides, comparing Barack Obama to Rush Limbaugh is like comparing Nelson Mandela to Joseph Goebbels. I am sure you can figure out the comparisons I am trying to draw with these examples.

 

Well, in my case I was once a liberal and now lean more towards conservative. However, I always vote for the best candidate regardless of party, all other things equal. My political views are closer to an independent with the caveat that I have no problem giving a person a hand-up but refuse to repeatedly give anyone a hand-out.

To me being tolerant means I begrudgingly put up with someone else's views. I prefer to accept that people can have differing views and still get along just fine because in the end nobody can saw with any certainty whose views are superior.

At my last workplace there were coworkers from various countries and religions. Many a time as senior staff member on shift, I would be asked if I minded that one or two of them go to prayer call. My response was always, "You are free to practice your religion. Aside from letting me know you will be away from your desk for a period of time please do not feel you require permission." We redistributed the workload during those absences and everyone worked well together.

 

I think that I prefer to judge ideas on their merits.

I've met quite a few university professors whose political judgement, common sense and personal lives left a great deal to be desired, but who nevertheless managed to display very sound judgement in some areas at some times. It was certainly possible for me to learn from them, to be stimulated by them, to enjoy their classes, despite my broader skepticism about whether their heads were screwed on straight.

That's how I approach all of life, including this board. I don't know very much about most of you, you could equally well be angels or devils in your private lives. So I basically just react to whatever words I see written on the screen. If those words make sense and communicate something believable, then they do. If they don't, then they don't, no matter who happened to write them. Personal authority doesn't really influence me very much.

 

I don't think that either Obama or Limbaugh belongs on the extremes of the good-evil dichotomy that you apparently are suggesting. Both of them are somewhere in the middle.

But if we are going to be drawing overblown analogies, then I have to say that my fear is that Barack Obama will end up a little too close to Hugo Chavez. There's a similar larger-than-life adulation, a similar alliance between the left-intellectuals and the street-activists. Of course, the US doesn't have Venezuela's caudillo tradition so the analogy can't be pushed too far. Nevertheless, if Obama is elected along with a supermajority in congress, the temptation to try to change the fundamental direction of national and with it world history will be awfully hard to resist.

 

Would you please go back and re-read what you wrote?

Done? Now do you realize how asinine that is? Perhaps it's not a big deal and perhaps even amusing to you to make comparisons of conservatives to Nazis. Well, I for one don't find it amusing at all when someone is so cavalier about tossing the Nazi label around in politics. It's intellectually bankrupt as well as ignorant as hell.

 

Ay dios mio! Bill, you actually think Rush's views are somewhere in the middle? Rush comes from the repugnant "Newt" brand of ultra far right neo conservatism, plain and simple. I am with Powell, this country does not need a party that has gone to far to the right, and seeks to engage in culture wars. Sorry.

Abner

 

I liked the part about having his maid score his "hillbilly heroin" for him.

 

This would mean Powell was lying when he said just the opposite.

Besides, if it was about race, why not do this months ago? He and Obama were black back then, too.

If there is evidence to support the notion that Powell lied about this, fine. But if not, why ascribe to him motives he has specifically denied? It sounds more like a cherished notion being disrupted by an inconvenient fact.

 

Once again, a culture war hot button topic meant to distract Americans from real issues like the economy.

Abner

 

It's not the "personal failings." It's the hypocrisy. Limbaugh was on record for years about being against drug treatment for drug offenders, then worked a deal for just such for himself. Plus, he got others to score his drugs for him. I'm no attorney, but that sounds like a conspiracy and/or a criminal enterprise.

 

Right. Because Obama was endorsed by the most prominent military man since the Vietnam era, it must be race, right?

I guess all that speechifying at the 2000 RNC supporting Bush was just covering up Powell's real endorsement of his main man, Alan Keyes. (Who ran against Bush in 2000.)

Bush II's Secretary of State. Bush I's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Reagan's National Security Advisor. But he endorsed Obama because they're both black? (Truth be told, Powell was made a general by another liberal Democrat, Jimmy Carter. Maybe that's it.)

 

That is really only thing that scares me about Obama becoming our president.