Why I’m Bitter
Mark Steyn quotes a reader:
How come when Colin Powell promoted Bush’s “lies,” he was not someone to be believed or trusted, but now that he’s endorsed Obama, he is someone to be . . . believed and trusted?
I think this completely misconstrues why a lot of people, myself included, find that UN presentation hard to forgive. It’s not that Powell wasn’t someone “to be believed or trusted” it’s that he was. Powell saying it had a different impact from Cheney or Wolfowitz saying it. Powell’s not crazy. He wouldn’t say it, it seemed to many of us, unless his assertions were backed up by convincing data. At the time, Howard Dean said:
Secretary Powell’s recent presentation at the UN showed the extent to which we have Iraq under an audio and visual microscope. Given that, I was impressed not by the vastness of evidence presented by the Secretary, but rather by its sketchiness.
In retrospect, Dean was right and the conventional wisdom was wrong. But the reason the conventional wisdom became so conventional was that most people — wrongly, as it turns out — deemed Powell to be a trustworthy figure. Very few people took the Dean line on this — he was in a minority even among leading Democrats. Meanwhile, I at least most certainly do think Powell’s forward-looking policy pronouncements would be more credible if he would address these concerns more honestly. But by the “don’t trust Powell” standard, a standard I’m happy to embrace, we should all be paying more attention to people like Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Carl Levin who were never taken in by the Bush/Powell/Cheney/McCain snowjob. I’m not sure that’s really the line Steyn means to be promoting.
31 Responses to “Why I’m Bitter”
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October 19th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I think we judge a national figure by how much we agree with him on any point. My opinion of Powell is certainly not fixed. He has been in the news, off and on, for nearly two decades. Over that time he has done things I deplore like executing the first gulf war and promoting the second and he has done things I admire like enunciating the Powell Doctrine. My opinion of him is as someone who basically would like to do the right thing, but is too weak to demand that others do the same.
His endorsement of Obama carries no weight with me, certainly. I’m already an Obama supporter. If Powell endorsed McCain this morning then I would not consider changing my vote for a second. But, I am pleased to see his endorsement because I believe that there still are some people who it might sway. Would our military hero Colin Powell endorse a socialist, a terrorist, someone who will be bad for the military?
October 19th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Powel is back. I agree with the top comment.
http://culturedecoded.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/overview-was-sarah-palin-worth-it/
October 19th, 2008 at 11:43 am
How come when a Republican says what the Republican party wants him to say, one is not sure whether he really believes it, but when a Republican says the opposite of what the Republican party wants him to say, one is pretty sure he believes it? How come when I tell you no, I didn’t steal the cookie, you don’t necessarily believe it, but when I tell you yes, I stole the cookie, you probably do believe it? How come when Faye Dunaway says “She’s my sister,” Jack Nicholson doesn’t believer her, and when she says “She’s my daughter,” Jack Nicholson still doesn’t believe her, but when she says “She’s my sister AND my daughter,” he believes her? How come people who comment on the Corner are functionally incapable of understanding human social interaction?
October 19th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Almost simultaneous with Powell’s presentation to the UN was Hans Blix’s rejection. (Well, the Blix speech came 3 days later). Blix’s speech should be read as an independent evaluation of approximately the same data. Although we, as a pubic, could not read the secret data that Powell’s speech was purportedly based on, Blix could. The US was obliged to share any information it received on WMD, whether secret or not, with the inspectors.
The fact that Hans Blix came to a startingly different conclusion shows that the secret data did not support Powell’s presentation. Many were hoodwinked by Powell, including democratic luminaries, such as Biden. The media was in the midst of the administration lovefest. But outsiders who did not have access to the secret stuff had sufficient information to be skeptical of Powell.
A sad chapter.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I don’t care what you think about Powell, watch the endorsement on MTP. It’s impossible not to be moved by it. It’s a very thought out, reasoned response, and conveys precisely why so many people took him at his word at the UN.
It may be mostly important because it will carry a few news cycles for Obama and cuts across any McCain “comeback” nonsense, but the words said on the teevee were devastating to McCain.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Love how Steyn scare-quotes ‘lies’, as if the jury is still out on that UN dog and pony show.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
The other U.N. member nations were not swayed at all by the “conventional wisdom” that said Powell must have known what he was talking about. The Security Council and the Secretary General didn’t support the invasion of Iraq. Which made our war of aggression illegal under international law and U.S. law, if anyone cares.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Well, obviously, regardless of whatever Colin Powell says or does in his attempts to rehabilitate his reputation.
That’s been clear since Dean ran for president as a truth teller and all the sages (Judis, etc.) said craaazy Howard Dean would ruin the Democratic party (McGovern, bitches!), and then he ran for DNC chair, and all the sages (Carville, etc.) said he would ruin the Democratic party with his ridiculous notions of a 50-state campaign.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Since it was pretty clear that everyone else in Bush’s circle was lying about Iraq, it’s hard for me to understand why Powell got a pass. I.e, All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; ergo Socrates is mortal.
On the other hand, I don’t discount Powell’s current status or the significance of his endorsement of Obama. Nobody’s perfect.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
One certainly hopes that this man plays no official role in a coming US administration. Most other security council members do not take kindly to being presented with obvious fabrications.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Why I’m Bitter
because you read Mark Steyn.
Allow me quote a couple lines from the Dhammapada,
as translated by Juan Mascaro:
October 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I was hoping when I started reading Matt’s post on Mark Steyn that he was going to examine the logic of Steyn’s reader’s statement, much as he did with Jonah Goldberg earlier. The argument is logically silly.
For one, I believe and trust that Powell will vote for Obama like he says he will. I still don’t believe or trust Colin Powell’s character. (For instance, at his press conference after MTP today, he defended his role in the Iraq war). The thing is, I don’t have to believe or trust him any more because he doesn’t hold the #4 position in the government.
It’s newsworthy not because anyone believes or trusts Colin Powell. It’s newsworthy because Bush’s former Secretary of State isn’t voting for his party’s successor.
October 19th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Couldn’t one just as easily say,
“How come when Colin Powell promoted Bush’s WMD tales, he was someone to be believed or trusted, but now that he’s endorsed Obama, he is someone not to be . . . believed and trusted?”
But I agree with your point. The sad and scary part was that he was viewed as someone to be trusted and he sold out his own principles as an act of loyalty to his boss. What today tells us is that he is desperate to show the world that his principles are once again guiding him.
October 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Once again I am struck by: 1) how few centrist, rational Republicans there are out there, all across the power structure of the party; and 2) how those few centrists are doing nothing to rebuild the Republican party.
Colin Powell apparently does not want to get his hands dirty and actually get involved in the day-to-day workings of the party (too busy making money, I guess). Making an occasional TV appearance of giving an interview do not count for very much, other than to make some voters Republican voters yearn for a better party.
The few Republican voters I know (sorry, I’m from Massachusetts and not at all wealthy) feel like they have no party. So I hope this election turns the heads of a big swarth of non-crazy Republican voters.
Fox, Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Hagee, etc. are not going away, but I am hoping that that’s all that will be left of the party for a very long time to come. No one in the GOP wants to cut off the extremists, because they need the votes. But the media may soon have to follow suit. If they are chasing a dwindling demographic of, say, 30 down to 25% of the population, they will soon have to change their marketing base.
October 19th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Love how Steyn scare-quotes ‘lies’, as if the jury is still out on that UN dog and pony show.
I’m sure that he also scare-quotes that his sugar-daddy Conrad Black is a ‘prisoner’ in ‘jail’.
October 19th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
brooksfoe hits it right on the head. And the fact that Steyn can’t apply simple logic to this issue speaks volumes about the idiocy that prevails for wisdom at The Corner.
October 19th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
“But the reason the conventional wisdom became so conventional was that most people — wrongly, as it turns out — deemed Powell to be a trustworthy figure.”
This is utter whitewash.
In fact Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice were all deemed “trustworthy” figures at the time–by liberals and conservatives alike. Indeed you’d have to look long and hard for any suggestion, by anyone, that our bold and serious leaders were anything less than utterly sincere. Suggesting otherwise was grounds for dismissal from polite society–as it was for the few who did seriously dissent.
The thing is, intellectuals, journalists and pundits are amnesiac and power-slavish as a rule. In times of “crisis”–manufactured or otherwise–particularly so.
October 19th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
It’s great when Matt pretends to derive his views from the insights of philosophy (i.e. yesterday). Tell me Matt, what does formal logic say about arguments made by authorities. Apparently it says that the argument matters, not who says it, unless they are proper Republican Daddies–in which case they’re infallible. This fun is only topped when Matt pretends to be a positivist and we learn that nothing can be true unless its effects can be quantified in a statistically significant manner.
Good to know that logic proves that there’s no reason to question the conclusions of the guy that covered up Mei Lei, who worked for an administration that waited to make their urgent case for war for nine months, when the political benefit was maximal, and had already made transparently false claims about the necessity of the war–no need to examine his argument at all! It must be true! Here’s to philosophy!
October 20th, 2008 at 1:01 am
In other words, conservatives must chose that Powell was either lying in 2003 or he’s lying now, about Sen. Obama. If Powell’s word justified the AUMF, then surely it his support of Sen. Obama is significant, worthy and weighty.
October 20th, 2008 at 7:23 am
I think in 2003, a lot of people thought “If the intelligence is good enough for Colin Powell, then its good enough for me.”
In 2000-2003, Powell was easily the most popular figure in the Bush administration. He had been touted as a Republican candidate in 2000, and could have been the first black President if he had wanted it. At the time, his wife was said to be against it.
Powell’s popularity was a big problem for Bush, who resented and envied his stature and respect. Powell found himself undermined by Rumsfield and Cheney, who knew how to manipulate their malleable chief. Given Bush’s propensity to go to war, Powell’s moderation meant a continual loss of influence. Someone who should have supported him was Condoleeza Rice, but she interpreted her role as that of facilitator of the President’s wishes.
Powell probably gave the UN speech as a desperate attempt to retain his status within the Administration and mitigate the Hawks. He should have resigned, of course, and his speech did nothing to improve his position, only ensuring his ignominy in history.
However, I am prepared to give a guy a shot at redemption after the last 24 hours.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Is that partly the point of his endorsement – redemption?
October 20th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Apples and oranges anyway, isn’t it?
In 2003 the question was whether to believe Powell’s WMD allegations – based on classified information that the public had a limited basis for judging.
In 2008 the question is how much weight to give to Powell’s clearly stated rationales for his own views of events that we have all observed.
Personally, I was impressed by Powell’s comments. How many times recently have we heard republicans speaking so straightforwardly and thoughtfully?
He still won’t speak straightforwardly and thoughtfully about the Iraq War though. I was struck by the contrast in his post-MTP comments between his discussion of Obama and of Iraq.
‘The president wanted to avoid war, we tried to do that, we couldn’t get it through the UN’ [???!!!]
October 20th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Here is link to Powell comments I discussed in previous comment 22:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LbLxja4UHY
October 20th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Otter: You fucked up – you trusted us!
(Animal House)
Steyn: You fucked up – you trusted us!
(Animal House 2)
March 13th, 2009 at 12:19 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
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