http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=7332DC3D-18FE-70B2-A832A0DF7071C22C Powell fires back By: Jonathan Martin May 24, 2009 12:56 PM EST In the latest round of the increasingly heated intra-GOP feud, former Secretary of State Colin Powell Sunday defended his Republican credentials and fired back at radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney, saying the party had to expand beyond its conservative base. “Rush will not get his wish and Mr. Cheney was misinformed – I am still a Republican,” Powell said in a much-anticipated interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” two weeks after Cheney suggested on the same show that the retired general had left the party by endorsing Barack Obama last fall. Powell outlined his party bona fides, noting his votes for and services under a string of Republican presidents, and said it was not up to Cheney and Limbaugh – the radio host has kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism since Powell's cross-party endorsement last year – to determine who belonged in the GOP. “Neither [Cheney] nor Rush Limbaugh are members of the membership committee of the Republican Party,” Powell said. Powell suggested that there were a number of moderates in the party who shared his concerns but were hesitant to speak out “because if you are vocal you’re going to get your voice mail filled up and get lots of e-mails like I did.” One such Republican did seem to take Powell's side of the fight today, as Former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge also joined in the criticism of Limbaugh Sunday. “I think Rush articulates his point of view in ways that offend very many,” Ridge said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It's a matter of language and a matter of how you use words. It does get the base all fired up and he's got a strong following. But personally, if he would listen to me and I doubt if he would, the notion is express yourselves but let's respect others opinions and let's not be divisive.” Ridge also split with Cheney on the vice president's claim that Obama's policies were making Americans less safe. "I do not" agree with that, Ridge plainly told CNN's John King, adding, "Yeah, I disagree with Dick Cheney." Powell also found a less likely ally in former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who said on "Meet the Press" that "I don't want to pick a fight with Dick Cheney, but the fact is, the Republican party has to be a broad party that appeals across the country," adding, "To be a national party, you have to have a big enough tent that you inevitably have fights inside the tent." Pointing to President Ronald Reagan's at appealing to Democrats and independents as he carried 49 states in 1984, Gingrich – himself a potential 2012 contender for the party's presidential nomination – concluded, "I think Republicans are going to be very foolish if thy run around deciding that they're going to see how much they can purge us down to the smallest possible space." It's a point Powell made, even as reiterated his commitment to the GOP, stressing that the party had to broaden itself to stay relevant, framing his critique as the political version of a military after-action report following last year’s election. “I think the Republican Party has to take a hard look at itself and decide what kind of party are we,” Powell said. “Are we simply moving further to the right and by so doing opening up the right of center and the center to be taken over by independents and be taken over by Democrats.” Powell – who held up the late Jack Kemp as a model for the party, a conservative who was inclusive – also had some choice words for his two critics. Reiterating his support for closing down the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Powell said Cheney’s opposition was an affront to Obama’s predecessor as well. “Mr. Cheney is not only disagreeing with President Obama’s policy, he’s disagreeing with President Bush’s policy,” Powell said. And, citing Cheney’s suggestion in a speech last week that President Obama only wanted to close Guantanamo to make Europeans happy, Powell said, “No, we’re doing it to reassure Europeans, Muslims, Arabs, all the people around the world, that we’re a nation of law.” Lending credence to Democrats argument that moving the Gitmo detainees to American soil would not put the country in danger, Powell said he was “not terribly worried about one of these guys going to a super lock-up.” As for Limbaugh – whose name Powell pronounced as “Lim-bow” – the former secretary of state said he was an “entertainer” but who had such influence over the party that officials had to live in fear of offending him. He lamented that RNC Chairman Michael Steele had “to lay prostrate on the floor” apologizing to Limbaugh after criticizing him and that other GOP members of Congress had to be similarly repentant after taking on the radio host. “Well, if he’s out there he should be subject to criticism, just as I’m subject to criticism,” Powell said. Steele, who's giving on Tuesday what the RNC is touting as a major speech out his vision for the party, said in an interview this week with "Fox News," that "I want a party that speaks to people. The idea that we only narrowly speak to one segment of the population is boneheaded and it's not reflective of the history of this party," adding, "How is kicking Colin Powell out or kicking Dick Cheney out or Rush Limbaugh in going to feed a child who's hungry tonight?" In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Karl Rove dismissed the dust-up between Cheney and Powell, since "neither one of those two are candidates," and deemed the fight "a false debate that Washington loves." Asked if he agreed with Cheney's contention that Limbaugh was better for the Republican Party than Powell, Rove said: "Yes, if I had to pick between the two."
It's kinda like extremists in Islam telling moderates they aren't real Muslims because they don't blow shit up or hate America. Extreme parts of the Republican party have no business telling others who is and who isn't Republican.
If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Powell endorsed a Democrat for the highest profile political office in the world. Presumably he didn't vote for a Republican. If one doesn't vote for a political party, how can one (with any intellectual honesty) call oneself a member of that party? Or why does one even bother? Ed O.
If Powell has generally voted for Republicans, but this time voted for the Democrat because he felt the Democrat was the better choice, does that make him a fake Republican? I don't think a person has to vote pure party line to consider himself/herself part of the party. There can be deviation when one thinks their party doesn't have the best candidate. If one usually doesn't think their party has the best candidate, then it may be puzzling why they're a member of the party. Choosing a candidate from the opposing party once in a while isn't strange, IMO.
I don't think that who you vote for is 100% what your party affiliation is, and it's rather naive to think that is the case. Are you suggesting that you have to blindly follow your political party, otherwise you aren't a member?
Well, if I called myself a Republican, that would be pretty silly, since I almost always end up voting for the Dem. However, I have in my life voted for Republicans (Hatfield for example). Those votes don't make me a Rep, any more than Powell's one vote makes him a Dem. Sometimes the guy from the other side is a more appealing candidate. barfo
Country first? Guess not. Powell has servered under numerous Republicans, I don't think it's right for anyone to try and Suge Knight him out of the party because he deviated one time. This is why there are less people who call themselves Republicans than before. The party radicals who have the control, try and dictate a stance that suggests if you don't think like them, then you're simply not a Republican. The core of the Republican party is good, but most aren't able to see that with Limbaugh and Cheney still at the helm.
Given that the only other choice was a psycho-comedic paring of immaturity and senility, all Powell demonstrated was his sanity and genuine concern for the well-being of his country.
Did he step forward and support ANY Republican candidates? Has he stated that he's voted for any Republican in, say, the last two years? Or four? Is he doing anything now other than calling himself a Republican to demonstrate that he IS a Republican? I ask this honestly; I don't pay that close of attention to what he's up to, but it seems like he's merely criticizing "his" party, rather than doing anything to show that he actually supports the GOP. Past performance is not always indicative of present political leanings... I don't think that someone merely claiming to be a member of a party is enough to convince me that they are a "real" member of that party. Ed O.
Uh. What? I think that both Democrats and Republicans put their country first... they just often think that the best way to improve the country is through different paths. Saying someone is not a "real" Republican is not calling someone a traitor or a Swede. Ed O.
He voted for Obama. He endorsed Obama. He's now criticizing the party as a whole. That's not merely exercising his right to vote. It's attempting to undermine the interests of the Republican party. Which is fine... he should act in the way that is in his own best interests. It doesn't follow, though, that he can both eat his cake and have it, too. Ed O.
I don't see an issue publically calling out a political establishment (which you are a member) that is a shell of its former self due to being blinded by its own rhetoric. Change in the GOP won't come easy and honestly I will more republicans would tell Rush that he isn't the republican jesus that he makes himself out to be.
It depends on if you think that what he's "undermining" is the interests of the Republican party as a whole, or a small minority of it that has taken over. I don't agree. My mom is a republican (in the old sense. Not only because she is old, but in the Eisenhower Republican sense). She voted for Obama, but still considers herself a Republican not because of the ideology that the party currently has. She considers herself a Republican in spite of how it doesn't jive with what she considers her Republican roots.
Why 2 or 4 years? He served in the first George W. Bush administration. How many people "state" who they voted for? What evidence is there that he didn't vote for Bush in 2004? Well, this is an interesting point. It also gets at the "dissent is treachery" concept that was espoused for a while earlier this decade (not accusing you of it, I just find this a similar concept). If you support an entity and/or care about it, do you criticize it when you feel it's going in a bad direction or just mouth support? This can be applied to nation or party. Personally, I think that you should criticize because if there's no criticism, there's no impetus for change. A lot of moderate Republicans feel that the party has been taken over by the extreme element. Not the fiscal conservatives that originally defined the party, but the religious social conservatives. Many conservatives hold Ronald Reagan as the defining icon of the modern GOP, and he wasn't all that interested in religiously-driven social conservatism, he was interested in fiscal conservatism. If Powell is of that mold and feels that the party has gone off-track, shouldn't he criticize that? Well, ultimately a person defines their own political ideology and allegiance, IMO. The Republican party has some rather disparate interest groups and they seem to be at odds at the moment. I don't think there's any cognitive dissonance for a fiscal conservative who's been a lifelong Republican to criticize the current incarnation of the Republican party. I don't think that makes him "not a Republican," but rather a Republican not happy with the current direction of his party.
Many Republicans say country first, Powell did just that and went country first and not political ideaology first. I have yet to see how Powell has gained from his support of Obama, if anything it's hurt him. It's unusual of you to dismiss the guy as a Republican because the guy gave support to a candidate of an opposing party. Perhaps he thought country first when doing so? And a lot of Republicans this election crossed-over, that is not an abberation. I think that is pretty naive to suggest that. Not all, but most politicians do what's in the best interest of their own political party, not necessarily the country. (IE Gingrich going after Bill Clinton for cheating when he was fucking around while his wife was dying of cancer, Pelosi falsely calling out the CIA to make herself and her party the anti-establishment party.) Really? Then you must not be listening to what the major voices of the Republican party have been saying since Powell gave his support of Obama. They actually used the word "traitor" so I don't know where you're getting this from. And those voices you ask? Try Limbaugh, Coulter, and Ingraham to name a few.
Well, looking at 2 or 4 years stretches into a period before just the most recent election (which seems to be, in the minds of some in this thread, an outlying position, rather than a part of a pattern). If we knew which candidates he endorsed and/or voted for, it would give us a sense of whether his Obama support was a freak thing or just part of his evolution as a public figure. Did Reagan support Carter in 1976, when he lost the nomination? Of course not. Did Reagan want change? Yes. He achieved that by taking positive steps. By changing the party through action, not through complaint and by looking over to the Democrats for answers. The only objective measurements of what party a person belongs to, IMO, are (a) how she or he votes, (b) which candidates the person supports, and (c) general political attitudes matching with party goals. I don't see much, if any, evidence of any of these three things recently from Powell. I will admit, again, that I have not looked for them so it might just be my ignorance. I do not put much, if any, stock into self-identification because it's all but useless and can be manipulated (by either side) into a distortion of reality. Ed O.
It's not about whether he hurt or helped himself... I don't BLAME him for doing what he thought was best. I just don't find it, along with other things that I've read he's said and done in the relatively recent past, consistent with the actions of someone within a political party. They believe that their party is best suited to help the country. I don't think that a person acting in their party's interests is necessarily putting the country behind anything. I should have said, "Not a traitor to the country." He might be a traitor to the party, sure. Ed O.
Maybe. On the other hand, Reagan wanted to get elected, not just reform the party, and you don't get elected by supporting the other party's candidate (not that I am suggesting that Reagan would have supported Carter anyway, he would not have). Powell isn't a politician, at least not so far. He's never run for public office. He's a public figure, but his motivations are bound to be different than Reagan's were. barfo
Did Powell support Gore when he pulled out of the nomination? Of course not. He joined the Bush administration after endorsing Bush. This didn't really address my point of feeling that the party has been hijacked by people who don't embody what the party was grounded in. The Republicans' calling card was fiscal conservatism, not religiously-motivated action. The recent Republican party hasn't been at all fiscally conservative (until now, when they are motivated to block anything Obama does). How is it "looking to the Democrats for answers" to oppose the Republican party being moved away from its traditional roots?
