Colin Powel To Respond Again To Attacks From The Far Right

Colin Powell, who has already responded to attacks from Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh, will be appearing on Face The Nation today:

Under intense fire from the right, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is preparing to answer his Republican critics this weekend in a television appearance that is likely to add fuel to his long-standing feud with top conservatives in his party.

The appearance will come just days after Powell, one of the country’s leading black political figures, told an audience in Boston that a new Republican Party is “waiting to emerge.” Earlier this month, he said the party is in “deep trouble” because “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”

Powell’s current battle with the right flank of the GOP is a continuation of a war that began in November 1995, when he announced that he would not be a candidate in the 1996 presidential race. With an apparent eye on 2000, he said he would change his lifelong political registration from independent to Republican and begin a quest to move the party toward what he considered its natural home in the center.

The GOP has moved far away from the center since 2000, but hopefully moderate Republicans such as Powell can change this.

10 Comments

  1. 1
    MsJoanne says:

    While I wholeheartedly think we need a two (or more) party system, the last party we need is the GOP. They are tainted, unethical, completely without compassion or conscience, worse liars than most. Fuck the GOP. Let them die and bury them for all eternity. Let a new party begin.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    I can only see one of two things happening. Either the Republicans will change over time or, despite all the obstacles, a new party will develop. If they continue on their current course the Republicans will not be anything more than a regional party.

  3. 3
    Mike says:

    Colin Powell comes up with what I find as a very definative statement. “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”  There is obviously a spectrum of how much size and/or power the federal government should have. The more you are in favor of a smaller, weaker government the more the term “right wing” or “conservative” fits.  The more you are for growth or strength, the more “left” or liberal fits.  Definitions to me are very important.  Thats why I’m constantly asking, sometimes facetiously, sometimes incredulously, what we mean by these words.   I see the dichotomy of many that push for smaller government are also pushing at the same time for more government control of  “moral issues”.  Well I’m definately in the camp of the government is too big right now in all areas.  I think people pushing for more government don’t realize how dangerous  an already too large, (in my opinion) government can be.  Pretend for a moment we had a national health care and I was some “moral issues” exteremist that got myself elected and had at the time a go-along congress. What would stop me from “improving health care” by “providing” weekly, mandatory, screening of kids from the age of 12 to 17 for venereal disease. I’d simply have all kids have to expose their genitals, weekly to some “trained” goverment worker. Those with signs of VD would get further treatment.  I, of course, wouldn’t care if visual inspections would sufficiantly detect much, because I’m really not all that interested in science. Hey, if some poor, inner-city kids or parents didn’t like it, they would be free to opt out of the government provided care and either buy private insurance or go without.  But if they didn’t submit to my rules they would be out of the program.   Now I’m just preaching at this point but: People, we do not need more government right now, we need less, we don’t need more spending, we need to repeal as much of this new spending as possible and cut back where ever we can.

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    Mike,

    You are making two major mistakes with regards to your use of labels. First you are going by conservative rhetoric as opposed to what they actually do. Secondly you are assuming that there is one definition for conservative or liberal–there are a wide variety of view under both labels.

    Conservatives talk of smaller government but the reality is that the major growth in government in recent years has come under conservatives. They just ignore things they support as being big government.

    While conservatives talk more of smaller government, liberals are more concerned with limited government–that is limiting the power of the government over the individual.

    Conservatives might care more about how many people are employed by government or how many rules there are listed in the Federal Register. Liberals care more about limiting the power of government to restrict the freedom of individuals, but tend to care less about the more physical size of government.

    Liberals also differentiate between desired government and undesired government actions. Therefore liberals do not have the qualms that conservatives do about people who want government services to have them available, but are concerned when government policies infringe upon individual liberties.

    Of course there are a wide variety of people labeled liberal (as well as conservative). I’ve often criticized some strands of liberalism which promote big government programs without sufficient respect for liberty as much as I’ve criticized conservatives. There are also conservatives (although not the ones who dominate the Republican Party) who come closer to my beliefs than some liberals. A major problem with labels is that they can lump together people with quite different views creating artificial separations between people whose views are much closer.

    Conservatives, such as the talk radio people you listen to, use propaganda and misinformation to spread their views. They misrepresent the difference between conservatives and liberals as being over the size of government. Another propaganda tool of the right is to use scare stories of “national health care.” With the exception of Michael Moore and a very small number of people, very few people in this country support national health care.

  5. 5
    Mike says:

    No, I believe you may be thinking that I disagree with you in where I actually agree.  Namely, I agree that republicans talk the talk of limiting government but in practice, increase it.  Which goes back to what I implied in a previous post, that what I believe I see in both parties is very little liberalism or conservatism and a whole lot of cronyism.  That is why, to me, size matters. (Pardon the pun)  I’m convinced that with government, you get very little of anything but pandering and pay-offs.  Yes, as previously admitted, I am steeped in talk show radio rhetoric.  I know they give only one side of the story and I assume they distort/misrepresent things.  (That is the main reason I started reading this blog.)  Still, I didn’t start listening to radio as a “tabula rasa”.  Nor am I insulated against all other information.  I had a Mathematics Ph.D. over at my house Saturday. He is from the mountanous Kisii tribe of Kenya, although now he is a U.S. citizen. He tells me he has seen first hand, six years ago, the virtual elimination of snow from Mt. Kilimanjaro.  This isn’t the stuff I like to hear, I know I’m predisposed to want to dismiss global warming without looking at the facts.  But that doesn’t shake my core believes, that government uses global warming, and virtually every other issue, not to do anything but to take more money and power from me and to put it into their hands and the hands of their friends.   If I take on the the task of improving the planet by planting a tree in my yard, what is the government going to do? Is it going to have a salaried employee drive out to my house in a fossil fuel burning truck to verify I planted it and then cut me a check? Of course not, it may require me to have a GPS in my car or lawn mower, for that matter, to tax my miles.  It may jack up the tax on gas or electricity, but even if that does damper our energy use, (as well as our economy and standard of living) does that save the environment?   I know it is simplistic, but I can’t help but think everytime I see these huge forest fires in California, Dang! If they had only cut those trees and made furniture out of them, there would be less unemployment in California and less heat on the planet from all those burning trees!

  6. 6
    Ron Chusid says:

    The question of how intrusive actions to limit global warming are is a good question. That is one reason why I wish that we didn’t have an ideological divide over the issue where many of the people who are concerned about such issues are denying that the problem exists. Those who deny the existence of the problem are ultimately ignored and have no say in how we respond. Conservatives who are concerned with limiting government would be far more useful if instead of denying the problem they worked towards contributing ideas for responding to it which don’t rely on as much government activity.

    It is of course overstating the argument against government to claim that the government will send out someone to check whether you planted a tree. I haven’t see such a plan proposed. I’ve seen occasional mention of GPS ideas for taxing energy use, but both liberals and conservatives have rejected the idea.

  7. 7
    Fritz says:

    I don’t see a strong likelihood that global warming will be a major problem for the US in the next 50-70 years.  Given that, I think we should focus on “How to get the economy going” instead.  And since the dollar is tanking and oil prices are rising again, I think we need to look at rejuvenating coal as a fuel rather than destroying the industry, which is what the Obama administration has stated is its goal.

  8. 8
    Fritz says:

    As someone with no particular love for the Republican Party, I am glad that Colin Powell is going to fight to confirm its status as a party of gargantuan government.  And least it would be good to have it open and above board.

  9. 9
    Mike says:

    Maybe it is government, regardless of party, taking on a life of its own that wants and creates more government.  Ah crud! I just disproved my own theory that only life can produce life.

  10. 10
    Fritz says:

    Mike, if you have not read Parkinson’s Law, you should.

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