2016 Sept 15^th

The big news today is the revelation of the unvarnished opinions of General Colin Powell about the presidential candidates. We probably have the Russians to thank for this as they are making a national project of burrowing into the private emails of anyone whose comments might damage Hillary Clinton’s chances to be president. Guccifer 2.0 is responsible for this intrusion but in this case it might tarnish Trump more than Clinton. Guccifer takes a swipe at President Obama as well, telling us he “sold” ambassadorships. Well, I never! A president awarding ambassadorships to generous contributors.

Let’s check this out: Powell has some uncomplimentary things to say about Donald Trump. He begins by calling Trump a “national disgrace, an international pariah in the process of destroying himself so there is no need for Democrats to attack him.” General Powell is not a fan of Donald Trump. The feeling is mutual because Trump fired right back pointing to General Powell’s UN speech claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He claimed that Powell was at fault even though the Wolfowitz, Cheney, Bush cabal, intent on going to war, fed the general false intelligence data.  

General Powell is also critical of Hillary Clinton with whom he served and whom he knows well. He accuses her of “Unbridled ambition, (being) greedy and not (being) transformational.” The General is not a fan of the Secretary either although he doesn’t call her a national disgrace.

I watched a bit of Fox News this morning where an editor of the Wall Street Journal was holding forth on General Powell’s analysis of the candidates. This man said, with a perfectly straight face, that General Powell’s comments about Secretary Clinton were far more damaging to her than were his remarks about Donald Trump. His rationale for this curious comment was that such comments about Trump were old hat but Powell’s remarks about Clinton were new criticisms. We are to assume that being called a “national disgrace and an international pariah” is not nearly so damaging because many people have already made that assessment, than being declared “ambitious and greedy.” That’s how desperate this WSJ editor was to turn General Powell’s comments into something favorable for Trump.

Finally, on Guccifer 2.0’s comment about President Obama “selling” ambassadorships, our Russian friends should try to keep up with American political traditions. It is unfortunately common in all administrations for some mega-contributors to get ambassadorships whether or not they are qualified for them. This has happened in every administration at least in this century. Maybe the Russians could try something else to make Obama look bad; maybe they could claim that he wasn’t born in this country and so his presidency is illegitimate. No, wait; that’s been tried. It didn’t work.