Last updated on August 11th, 2014 at 12:00 am
Right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh wasted little time sticking the knife in Colin Powell’s back after the general endorsed Barack Obama this morning. Limbaugh claimed in an email that, “Powell’s move was very much related to Obama’s status as the first African-American with a chance to become president.”
“Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race, OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I’ll let you know what I come up with. I was also unaware of his dislike for John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia. I guess he also regrets Reagan and Bush making HIM a 4-star and Secretary of State AND appointing his son to head the FCC. Yes, let’s hear it for transformational figures.”
Gen. Powell spent a half an hour on national television on Sunday morning intelligently making the case for why he is endorsing Obama. He explained his problems with the direction that the Republican Party has taken the country in, and his doubts about the McCain/Palin ticket. For Limbaugh to minimize, not only Powell’s argument, but Powell himself, is deplorable. Gen. Powell is a man who is a true public servant. He has never ran for, or been elected to public office.
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Powell made it expressly clear that his endorsement was not based on race, so for Limbaugh to say that it was is a flat out lie. Perhaps Rush is too high to understand this, but Powell endorsed Obama, because America doesn’t need four more years of a broken foreign policy. Maybe, he sees the military that he served for so long being stressed to the breaking point, and he thought, no more. Maybe, just maybe, he believes that Obama would be a better president than McCain.
I think Limbaugh is out there all alone on this one. I doubt that most Republicans would demean Powell’s career in this way. Limbaugh’s comments are just the latest example of how low the conservative movement has sunk in a desperate attempt to maintain their fragile grip on power. Limbaugh assumes that Powell owes the GOP, but he already gave them years of service, and his credibility when he spoke before the UN on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. What else does he owe them? I wish I could say that no one cares what Limbaugh says, but he will have millions of listeners agreeing with him and this delusional rant on his show tomorrow.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
