Regaining Our Senses and Looking Into Our Hearts - or Maybe I'm Just a Fool?

Blogger-cramp. I'm unclear how it relates to writer's block. I have a multitude of links back-logged, and several resulting posts that were "almost there" but somehow did not make it. But indeed, there is a timeliness issue when it comes to the political stuff that has recently been for better or worse my main focus, and that does afflict me big-time.

Glenn Greenwald, like most sentient folks, is quite skeptical of the mouthings of one Colin Powell. As during the Vietnam war, it is a very tricky dynamic. The warriors (i.e., senior military leaders) are truly in a pickle when they are thrown into a conflagration that doesn't match up with the standard chess game. It's not clear how much Iraq was a grudge match, but the idea that Slimey's energy meetings in early 2001 were intensely focused on the details of Iraq's oil fields is quite telling.

I'm anything but a fan of Colin Powell, and have no idea what impact (if any) his Meet the Press endorsement of Obama will have (full video is below), but I was really glad to see him make the following point in explaining why he has rejected McCain's candidacy:

I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.

But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be
President?

Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion: he's a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Powell went on to say that he "feels strongly" about that point, and cited a photo essay he saw regarding U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan which included a photograph of a mother in Arlington National Cemetary with her head on the tombstone of her 20-year-old son, who was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star and was killed in Iraq, and the photograph showed the headstone adorned with the "crescent and star of the Islamic faith," and his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, a Muslim-American (I believe this is the soldier to whom Powell was referring).

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Musical interlude courtesy of Steven Earle (terrific disk and chart both "Jerusalem"):

I woke up this morning and none of the news was good
Death machines were rumblin' 'cross the ground where Jesus stood
And the man on my TV told me that it had always been that way
And there was nothing anyone could do or say

And I almost listened to him
Yeah I almost lost my mind
Then I regained my senses again
And looked into my heart to find

That I believe that one fine day all the children of Abraham
Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem

Well maybe I'm only dreamin' and maybe I'm just a fool
But I don't remember learnin' how to hate in Sunday school
Somewhere along the way I strayed and I never looked back again
But I still find some comfort now and then

Then the storm comes rumblin' in
And I can't lay me down
And the drums are drummin' again
And I can't stand the sound

But I believe there'll come a day when the lion and the lamb
Will lie down in peace together in Jerusalem

And there'll be no barricades then
There'll be no wire or walls
And we can wash all this blood from our hands
And all this hatred from our souls

And I believe that on that day all the children of Abraham
Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem

Believe me, those words set to music are painfully moving.

Joan Walsh, also at Salon, has some big-time Powell-sharing for us:

Colin Powell destroyed the last hope John McCain had to defeat Barack Obama and become president. I have never heard such a devastating and thoroughgoing critique of McCain's issue-free, fear-mongering campaign. While Powell's endorsing Obama on "Meet the Press" Sunday was expected, the way he did it was stunning.

Powell called the current economic crisis "a final exam" for both candidates, and basically said McCain failed. "He was a little unsure how to deal with the economic problems. Every day there was a different approach," Powell told NBC's Tom Brokaw. Remarkably, he said he was "concerned at the selection of Gov. Palin," who he called "distinguished" but added, "I don't believe she's ready to be president, which is the job of the vice president." He saved his harshest words for his own Republican Party, which he said had "moved more to the right than I would like to see it." He blasted McCain and the party's focus on issues like Obama's connection to former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers, specifically denouncing the shameful "robo-calls" tying Obama to Ayers and terrorism.

To focus on Powell's damning comments about McCain, Palin and the GOP should not obscure that his endorsement of Obama was enthusiastic and strong. He called Obama "a transformational figure," praised him for his "inclusive" campaign, his "intellectual curiosity" and his leadership. He acknowledged his 25-year friendship with McCain and sounded genuinely sad when he said, "It isn't easy for me to disappoint Sen. McCain as I have this morning, and I regret that."

It's hard for me not to see Powell's endorsement of Obama as a way to clear his conscience for the role he played in selling the Iraq war, which Obama opposed from the beginning. Powell brushed aside Brokaw's questions about his role in making the case for war, insisting it's "not a correct assessment by anybody that my leaving the administration would have stopped it."

Leaving all the politics aside, like Glenn Greenwald, I was most moved by Powell's attack on the way the GOP is using rumors that Obama is a Muslim.

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Powell's defense of American Muslims shouldn't be so remarkable, but it is. More than anything else, the Obama campaign's recent strength could show new limits to the politics of scapegoating and bullying that have defined the Bush years.

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