Yesterday, Colin Powell endorsed Senator Obama's presidency. Big surprise. I was so surprised that I almost forgot flip my booger. I'm not so much upset that Powell is endorsing Obama; It wouldn't have taken a genius to see that coming. I'm more concerned with his reasoning in voting for Obama. I'm serious about this. I'm not just trying to be all "Republican." I'm an artist. That's a party unto itself. We make parties for crying out loud! As for the current Obama fever, ironically, just being moderate puts me waaaaay in the minority. Anyways...Powell said the election of Obama would "electrify the world."
Why? Because he's black? Then why not Steevie Wonder?
"I think he is a transformational figure," Powell said. "He is a new generation coming ... onto the world stage and on the American stage. And for that reason, I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama."
I'm sorry, but "being a transformational figure" is a reason that would be given by a tree hugger, a fanatic, or a delusionist, not by one of the most powerful, balanced military leaders this nation has known. Why not Oprah, for that matter? She's uber transformational. Plus, she's been more places than Barack.
"I can't deny that it will be a historic event when an African-American becomes president," Powell continued, speaking live in the studio. "And should that happen, all Americans should be proud — not just African-American, but all Americans — that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It would also not only electrify the country, but electrify the world."
I agree that it would be a proud moment for our nation. But I'm not going to vote for someone because I feel bad about slavery and the civil rights movement. Yes it sucked, but that does not excuse me from using my brain to decipher who would best govern the free world. Sure Obama's got communication skills, but he is way GREEN, man. Period. And liberal as the day is long. You are a well-known moderate. Moderates have always made the best rulers. Which brings me to this: I'm honestly sad the you, Colin Powell, never took the plunge and ran for pres. If you stepped into Obama's boots, RIGHT NOW, I would vote for you. (After I tried to forget about the reasons for your Obama endorsment.) You also know that many people believe this as well. My only conclusion is that a vote for Obama from you eases your conscience for inaction.
"And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities — and you have to take that into account — as well as his substance — he has both style and substance, he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president."
Style and substance are the two prerequisites of being a president??? Brother, I hate to say it because I admire you so much, (even though you should have resigned before you made that speech to the U.N. about WMD.) but I think you've looked into the Palantir too long; drank from the golden Koolaid chalice; Jumped off the cliff because everyone else is doing it, whatever, you get the point.
I'm not so much disappointed in Powell's choice as I am in his reasoning for choosing: Race. Color. Rhetoric. Honestly, I was even looking to be a little convinced to sway back towards the middle. (I like the middle, its usually where the truth is.) The only substantial reason Powell gave for voting for Obama is that Obama would probably appoint liberal Justices to the S.C. Well, too bad for me, because that's exactly one of the biggest reasons that I wouldn't vote for Obama.
Powell's words only reinforce the fear I have about the coming election: The cult of personality is swaying the nation. It explains the crazy fanaticism. It gives the anger we have for being deceived as a nation somewhere to go. It eases our national conscience of at least SOMETHING, i.e. civil rights, in light of the international blunders we have committed in the last years. We are angry and we've been embarrassed. And Obama's the blue pill to release us form our current Matrix.
As a nation, that puts our reasoning powers in as much danger as they were when we invaded Iraq over Yellow Cake. Now, instead of voting for something because of Yellow Cake on a truck-bed, we are voting for a man because of the dark color of his Epidermis, hoping that in itself will cure our woes. It won't, and God help us all if some idiot tries something horrible when Obama is elected, because this pretty much sealed the deal for Obama.
All in all, I was just hoping for a better reason, or at least more reasons to vote for Obama over McCain. Yes, a part of me wants to ease that conscience as well. Scary. Yikes.
18 comments:
I totally agree. I was baffled. Not by his choice necessarily, but because he said little to overcome the obvious. He might as well have said.."I'm voting for Obama because he is black and if you haven't noticed, I am, too."
You know who else is transformational? Optimus Prime. Think about it.
Wow Seth, long time! I have truly missed visiting...I noticed your comment on Brody's site and kicked myself--belief me I have been off for awhile and you have all been missed...anyhow, without much ado, great read as usual!
WOW! After taking the time to read, my comment = "great job, brother!" LORD have mercy on us. I am glad He is in control come what may and will work ALL things out for good for those who love Him...
I didn't hear what Colin had to say and now I'm bummed I didn't hear it... I also would jump to vote for Colin - had been hoping for years that he'd take the plunge, and was disappointed when he said he wouldn't do it. And I feel exactly as you do about the SC and if this is really Colin's only "reason" for voting for Obama, well it doesn't really seem like it should be - there should be more to back-up his reasonings for voting for him. I agree that Obama seems/ is green (I don't know enough politics to say one way for sure) but I get the feeling when he talks that he's trying to hard to "handle" the listener (never felt "handled" by Colin). Plus I'm a lot more right sided than Obama is.
I like the way you think - glad I stumbled upon your blog!
Funny, my husband and I had this exact conversation this morning after church. You put our thoughts into consistency, however. Along the way, we think we've summed up Obama's "thing" - he's the hip guy and if you're hip, you're voting for him. For instance, I think you're the only one I've heard of with an iPhone that isn't voting for the man (you must not be 'that' hip). Everytime I get on Facebook, there he is. An add to click here and learn how to register and vote early for Obama pops up at every turn. No wonder our youth is so entranced. Keep up the great blog and the ability to read our minds but express it better! (-:
wow. i'm kind of depressed.
For anyone who didn't know this already, Colin Powell has always been outspoken in his support for abortion rights and affirmative action laws. Though he has served in Republican administrations, he is considered politically moderate, not conservative.
In previous elections, black voters have typically gone approximately 90% for the Democratic Party candidate. I saw one poll that said this election, it's expected to be something like 98% for Obama. But it's not this swing of 8% in the black vote that is causing the election to go in Obama's favor anyway. If you look at an electoral map of the states and how the polls are tracking, you'll notice that a few key battleground states that Bush won in 2004 have Obama leading now, and should easily put him ahead of McCain in total electoral votes. (Very interesting maps -- compare this with this.)
I think that historically speaking, it's not unusual for the political party whose President has been in power to lose the election when the current conditions are combined -- sitting President with low popularity ratings, an ongoing politically unpopular war, the economy taking a downturn, and people just being generally restless, scared, and ready for a change. The present set of conditions seem custom-made for a smooth-talker of Obama's caliber.
There's also a whole new generation of voters who have absolutely no recollection or point of reference to frame the political principles underlying this election. Meaning, we've had 8 years of a Republican president (Bush), before that 8 years of a moderate Democrat (Clinton), before that 12 years of a conservative Republican (Reagan) and moderate Republican (G.H.W. Bush). So you have to go all the way back to 1976 to find a liberal Democrat being elected (Carter).
It seems to me like Obama (and the political left in general) has also made considerable inroads with Christian voters. We're all familiar with the stereotypical right-wing conservative Christian Republican, but that image has become unpopular with many younger Christians. A lot of "social justice" and "Jesus is not a Republican" movements have arisen. The gist of their thinking is that Jesus was against war, and cared about the poor and oppressed, and the Democrats seem to more closely represent this ideal than the Republicans.
"But I'm not going to vote for someone because I feel bad about slavery and the civil rights movement" - Ditto! The funny thing is that BHO most likely has zero slaves in his ancestry, but I bet he has a bajillion slave-owners on his white mama's side. He's not really African-American, either - he's actually Arab-American. It's like the black people are thinking, "He's not like us, but his skin is pretty much the same color, so I guess he's as close as we're gonna get!" It's sad that they don't think they can do better than that. I wrote a post about "real" African-Americans who would do a better job:
http://suedawg.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-cant-someone-else-be-first-african.html
And I agree with C-Ham. We can't expect to have one party lead the nation for more than 8 years in a row. It usually goes back and forth, which is usually good for the country. In this case, though, I think that people will find out differently. What will happen when Israel has no friends at all??? That will be the case if BHO takes office. He will be no friend to Israel. He'll go talk to Iran with no pre-conditions. What would be stopping Iran (or anyone else) from blowing Israel off the map? Not a thing. That's where I think God would step in and help Israel, and we might be looking at the end times. I'm not usually the type of person to see things in the news and say, "The end is coming!" But right now I'm wondering if BHO winning is what God wants because it would hasten the end. If so, it's a bit scary, but I have to say, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus!"
I don't understand all the hype over skin color. Obama is as much white as he is black. Race shouldn't even be an issue.
Wow, I had no idea there were so many racists voting!
Tully - How can it be racist for a white person to choose McCain over Obama when Obama is just as white as he is black? How can I be racist toward someone who shares my ethnicity? Geesh. Believe it or not, if a black Republican was ahead of a white Democrat, I wouldn't be accusing the Democratic voters of being racist. That's just childish. If I had thought that any candidate of the past might have been born in another country and was trying to hide it, I would be hoping that someone would try to get to the bottom of it. The video clips about Obama's past enrage liberals because they're so AFRAID that most of it is true. I guarantee you that this guy has something to hide. Why not find out now? And as far as the Colin Powell thing goes...Powell has always been a liberal Republican. He didn't have to lean much farther to the left to become a Democrat.
Thanks Susanne. Missed the racist comment. I'm curious, what is racist about saying that I'm not going to vote for someone JUST BECAUSE he is black, or half white or whatever. In fact, it just the opposite. I am giving both a fair shake, looking at their records and voting on the content of their character. Calling me a racist is just silly and typical. However, if that was unintentionally conveyed, I do apologize.
But is was not intentional. No one should vote for any candidate because of the color of their skin. In fact, if I am tempted to vote for Obama, it would be ONLY because he is black. I grew up in black neighborhoods. Half of my friends growing up were black. I have black buddies who read this blog. Some are McCain supporters, some support Obama, none of them are racist, and neither am I.
I want to see that progress just as much as any good American. But voting for a candidate because of a skin color, letting it be a factor, no matter what the good intentions, is racist. Funny thing is, Obama agrees. When asked if he were worried that white people wouldn't vote for him just because he's black, he replied that it was wrong and the there would be just as many black people voting for him just because he is black, which is equally skewed. But that's just life, right now, unfortunately.
I just didn't expect to see it coming from Colin Powell.
I’m not going to respond to Susanne’s accusation of childishness because we all know where that leads (and I’m just going to fall for that one again).
Seth, I wasn’t calling you a racist, just curious as to why Colin Powell’s endorsement was considered a “black thing” when those who endorse McCain who are white isn’t considered a “white thing.”
I’m not voting for Obama because of his skin color (quite frankly I wish he were white skinned so that people would focus on his message instead of his ethnicity and we could get to the real issues that matter). Colin Powell gave a list of reasons why he wasn’t endorsing McCain, but all the Wing Nuts focused on was his one mention of the historic nature of having an African American President – which will be undoubtedly be historic. That is a fact…but he said a lot of other things while on Meet the Press that people are conveniently leaving out.
And while we are busy looking into people’s background and records. Can we PLEASE look into Palin’s abuse of power and her husband’s Anti-Amarican views (and belonging to an Anti-American Organization) on wanting to secede from the US and Washington (someone she is most assuredly “palling around with”)! So, Palin calling any part of the country Anti-American is awfully rich!
McCain should have chosen Mitt Romney…and stuck to his Mavericky ways and played this campaign on the up and up. Had he done so, even I might have voted for him (for he has historically always been a moderate Republican)…but that’s not how it played out and the ramifications of his decisions are evident in the polls!
Such a spirited conversation.
All I have to add is that I am very impressed by your picture from this post. How long did you spend photoshopping that one? ;)
Susanne said:That's where I think God would step in and help Israel, and we might be looking at the end times. I'm not usually the type of person to see things in the news and say, "The end is coming!" But right now I'm wondering if BHO winning is what God wants because it would hasten the end. If so, it's a bit scary, but I have to say, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus!"
That's funny, I just heard someone last week who pointed to all the things that happened to get Bush elected, how it was obviously God's will that he be elected, and that God put him in office to judge and humble America. People see what they want to see.
Stephen, "People see what they want to see."
I agree. In the end, the world is the Lord's and all that is in it. What the heck do we know? Dust hasn't proved itself to be that smart.
True, Stephen. I certainly didn't mean to insinuate that I know what God's plan is or how He will go about carrying it out. I was just wondering about things...trying to picture what could happen if either candidate wins. It doesn't look like it will be a great 4 years, no matter who wins. But as Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun. Our country has been through more trying times before, and the world has certainly seen more difficult times. We can't worry about tomorrow.
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