Cokie Roberts tells us this morning that Clark Clifford [who replaced McNamara as Secretary of War in 1968] "was considered one of the wise men of Washington, and that’s who you’re hearing from a good bit now—that whole Baker-Hamilton commission was considered the elder statesmen of the two parties coming together to give their advice and one of the wisest of wise men according to many people in Washington is Colin Powell who yesterday decided to break his silence on the war in Iraq.Wise men? One of the wisest? In what way is Colin Powell wise? Frankly he was a complete and complicit tool in the whole Iraq War project and used his "reputation" to sell it. Based on his behavior, he is either a complete idiot, or a self-serving liar. Given his past I'd put my money on the latter.
3 comments:
My goodness, as the 'late' Don Rumpsfeld would say, what a situation! One thing about Powell, his place in history is assured: as a figure of Shakespearean proportions as far as tragedy is concerned. But he has all the qualities of one of the Bard's more minor tragic characters. Not 'Hamlet'-worthy by a long shot, but maybe someone out of 'Titus Andronicus', some role that isn’t readily remembered. Or maybe he is just the third stooge (great photo of the 3, together again!) The problem is, Powell does not have the aura of greatness about him. He towed the company line, and his sell-out makes any latter day statements he may make about the war dubious at best. To my mind, he has all the integrity of Richard Perle & Co., who bitch about the fact that they were right about Iraq, but their ideas just weren't prosecuted correctly.
And on a different subject, when is Paul Wolfowitz going to be dragged back into the spotlight and roasted? We've heard from everybody but him. Is the splendid isolation of the World Bank impregnable? Believe me, I don't expect NPR to do ANY sort of probing in that direction!
maybe not Shakespeare...
maybe Arthur Miller?
Death of a Salesman?
Bingo.
Or Johnny Tomorrow in O'Neill's 'The Iceman Cometh'.
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