General Powell - "we hardly knew ye" - or did we?

Yesterday (Sunday, October 18, 2008) Colin Powell endorsed Senator Obama for president. I have a lot of respect for Powell as a military man. That being said (coming from a family where my father and two brothers were military officers) to rise as high as he did (in the military)he needed to be very politically astute. He said - as early as '96 - that he was a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. In most cases I can't see the ability to be both - many of the socially liberal stances require substantial spending.

Once thing that bothered me a couple of days ago when I saw it was Powell saying electing a black man would be electrifying in the message it sent to the world. If you read the whole article at this link

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/15/1403219.aspx

you will see what scares me about that attitude (held by a lot of people). I think the job of president is much too important to be used to "send a message". I keep having this vision of Sally Field standing at the Oscars saying "You like me. You really like me." I think this statement, coupled with others (ie governor Palin does not have the ability to be president while Obama is qualified to be commander in chief and I don't think the supreme court can stand more conservative appointments) shows me he has an agenda. As I stated before he had to be very politically savvy to rise to his position in the military so he has to know that an Obama president with a democratic congress (and a possible super majority in the senate) things like "the fairness doctrine"

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/EM368.cfm

will be passed ultimately having the power to limit free and open debate in this country.

In the long run I don't think this endorsement is going to sway anyone and it has the flavor - at this point in the race - of jumping on the bandwagon. Something that someone with Colin Powell's stature does not need to do. So it makes me wonder why he did.

Given the upsurge of social progressives and their agenda in the past years it doesn't surprise me that huge numbers of people seem eager to willing vote away their individual freedoms. But it does surprise me that someone who has seen, firsthand, the price paid by countless numbers of men and women over the years to defend those freedoms would encourage them to do so.