Fanatical Apathy

Oh my! Can you make that into a bumper sticker, please, please?

ROFL! The best laugh I've had all week!

Very well put, Adam. As I watched, I was wondering if I should feel some sort of a pity that a largely capable and decent man should have to carry out such an assignment and be expected to keep a straight face.

Then I reflected that he was the one who chose to hang with this group ... so, you play with what you get dealt.

Poor guy, I kinda feel sorry for him.

More smoke (and a few mirrors) than guns. Why is it that so many of us want to like and trust Powell? I was one, for some time, also. He's even more deceiving than the rest of them. He has stated before Congress that he wants the U.S. to be the biggest and baddest dude on the block (in effect). He is not interested in a sustainable world, for the beterment of all. He's just another weasel. (Sorry -- I'm provoked by this issue.)

Ishmael, you are right about Powell. I used to like him and when you listen to him he seems like the good guy... but that's in comparison to the wackos he is surrounded by. It's like when you vote, if you vote for the lesser of two evils, the choice is still evil.

I'm not quite sure I agree with this characterization of Powell (after that last post I can't help but call him Collie when ever I think about it). I don't think he's a lesser of two evil's at all. He's a Republican, and I while I can't agree with all of his opinions, he's entitled to them.

But I still have the feeling that he tries to work for what he thinks is the best for America and not what is best Corporate America. He was brought on to the Administration in the interest of name recognition, diversity, and "compassionate-conservatism", and has been a major pain-in-the-rear to the Administration ever since.

Unless Bob Woodward is way off in his reporting, Bush at War paints a very interesting picture of how the Administration works and Powell is clearly the moderating influence and one of the few reasons that we haven't done everything that Bush throws out in his rhetoric.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I really hope that I'm not. I still have some hope that we'll survive the next couple of years as long as Powell keeps up the good fight.

i wonder these days if powell's earlier "sensibilities" were all an act to make the administration's case for invasion appear more convincing when he finally switched to the dark side. call me conspiratorial, but this guy is a long time bushie and an intelligent man and it's hard not to believe that he knows which side butters his bread, so to speak. trot him out early to appeal to the moderates and the left as the voice of reason and once they're on board he changes his story to support the pres. standard good cop to bush's bad.

you don't get to be secretary of state in this administration by swimming against the current.

hilarious picture.

Landis, you are right and I may have been a little flippant about Mr. Powell being evil, but I'm a little frustrated with our push to war. He may have moderated the president's views, but the rhetoric is still the same, we're gonna go in and do what we want and the rest of the world can suck eggs. I am also not sure if he has a different agenda than the president, he just seems a lot more cautious, as he demonstrated in the first war in the gulf. That's great, but we are still probably going to invade soon. To me that would be a fairly evil thing to do.

What does it mean to say that someone is "entitled to their opinion"? (That they won't be put in jail for expressing an opinion? I'm not worrying about Powell in prison, but I have some care for many of the rest of us.)

Landis, I haven't seen anything to show that Powell isn't a corporatist. And a milatarist. (You know, if the only tool that you have is a bomb, pretty soon all problems look like they need to be blown up.) I can't support any narrow-minded nationalist, when there really is only one people, and one world. Powell seems to be at least three of the "ists" that I can't cotton.

We need to do better than that, no?