Colin Powell — who might be the most popular Republican in the country — has endorsed Obama for President. His entire statement — seven minutes of talking, uninterrupted by questions — is worth the watch, and can be viewed here at Ta-Nehisi’s place.
But I want to highlight one particular thing Powell said, which quite frankly rocked.
And the transcript, courtesy of Kate Orman:
I’m also troubled by, not what Senator 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’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American.
I can’t take credit for that transcript – I just cut-and-pasted it from here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27266223/page/2/
I’m glad Powell recognized the problem with Obama’s having to dissociate himself from Muslims as being as sign that some significant chunk of voters are biased against Muslims qua Muslims (as opposed to being biased against Muslims-who-train-in-terror-camps or Muslims-who-oppose-women’s-equality, etc.). I’m afraid other Republicans are more delusional; cf. William Kristol: “Sept. 11 did not result in a much-feared (by intellectuals) wave of popular Islamophobia or xenophobia.”
Sen. Clinton was asked in an interview during the primaries if Obama was a Muslim, and that’s not an indication of a “wave of popular Islamophobia”? Sen. McCain reluctantly had to correct one of his supporters who began her litany of why she distrusted Obama with the claim he’s an Arab, and that’s not an indication of xenophobia? Kristol evidently cannot bear to admit that Islamophobia and xenophobia are sufficiently popular that even the media elites, such as Sean Hannity, will play on it for their party’s electoral gain.
My wife and I had heard that Powell was going to endorse Obama, and we gathered around the computer to watch a feed of the actual message. When it was over, we sat in stunned silence. Then we turned to each other, and realized that the same question was lurking in the back of each of our minds, to wit:
WHERE THE FUCK HAS POWELL BEEN ALL THIS TIME? Why has he kept these thoughts to himself all these years?
But then my wife offered this thought: it’s The Lion King. Powell knows that he was duped into a screw-up of catastrophic proportions and has been immobilized by guilt ever since. Only now has he regained his footing and composure at least long enough to help overthrow the corrupt regime of the deceiver. If so, hey, cue the music, baby!
Now I had fully expected Powell would acknowledge his support for Obama. But I didn’t expect that he’d take the occasion to mention virtually every concern I’ve had about the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan.
And in particular, I never expected that Powell would take this occasion to go right at the heart of the toughest nut of all: prejudice on the basis of religion. Thus, like Amp, I also was completely floored.
I sense that many people believe that discriminating against people on the basis of their beliefs is fair (a view I share), and that a person’s religious affiliation is mostly a matter of belief (a view I doubt). WWII has managed to stigmatize one flavor of religions discrimination – anti-Semitism – but we have no comparable term, or stigma, for discrimination against Muslims.
Journalist face a challenge when reporting on the oft-heard allegation that Obama is a Muslim. It’s hard not to suspect that the rumor is being spread as a smear. But it’s also hard for a journalist to say so without implying that Muslim is a derogatory term. And somehow it’s not sufficient to simply “tack on the Seinfeldian ‘he’s not a Muslim, not that there’s anything wrong with that’.”
WHERE THE FUCK HAS POWELL BEEN ALL THIS TIME?
Waiting to get paid?
“He will have a role as one of my advisers,” Barack Obama said on NBC’s “Today” in an interview aired Monday, a day after Powell, a four-star general and President Bush’s former secretary of state, endorsed him.
So, Ron, you think Powell and Obama made some sort of back-room deal? I suppose in a way that’s a little better than the standard right-wing “well, what do you expect, they’re both [African-American]!” reaction.
Powell could very possibly have been McCain’s running mate if he’d wanted to be. (Although he’s almost as old, so that might have been a concern.) And, despite Powell’s UN flim-flam, if I were president I’d want his advice.
Sen. Clinton was asked in an interview during the primaries if Obama was a Muslim, and that’s not an indication of a “wave of popular Islamophobia”? Sen. McCain reluctantly had to correct one of his supporters who began her litany of why she distrusted Obama with the claim he’s an Arab, and that’s not an indication of xenophobia?
Two instances of individual questions does not a wave make. Which is not to say that Islamophobia doesn’t exist, but that this is insufficient evidence of it.
Lu, it was a question, not a statement. But it would be consistent with Sen. Obama’s political background in the Chicago Democratic Machine.
Also – thanks, Colin Powell, for this minor but important shout-out:
Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?
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.”
Members of the party? Permitted?
Which members of the party would that be? What office do they hold in the party? Who are they? Or are you really talking about supporters of Sen. McCain’s campaign, who (like me) may very well have no particular party membership or affiliation?
And I was not aware that either the Democratic or Republican parties issued revocable permits to supporters for their candidates to say whatever they choose to.
I’m curious as to how big of a problem this is. Are there any surveys out there that measure a) how many people really think that Sen. Obama has a connection to Islam and b) will not vote for him because of it?
Edit: Surveys run back in March say that at that time 12% of Americans thought that he was a Moslem, but there’s nothing more recent. I also can’t find any such survey that included the party affiliations of the respondents. I can’t find any survey that asks “Would you not vote for someone for President if they were a Moslem?”
Is the “Islamophobia” issue really the media cherry-picking off a few intemperate or ignorant comments and distorting it to make it appear as if there’s some kind of widespread bigotry against Moslems in the Republican – and only in the Republican – party?
WHERE THE FUCK HAS POWELL BEEN ALL THIS TIME?
Waiting to get paid?
Of course there always has to be some motivation behind the actions. We certainly should not take Powell at his word when he listed the reasons why a McCain presidency is problematic. I notice that you did not take the time to address the veracity of his statements.
It seems to me that those that seek to critique what Powell did on Sunday always look for the dark side. He is either helping a brotha out or seeking revenge. Why can we not just simply all admit that the man made some excellent points.
And why has Joe Lieberman, for whom Obama campaigned in the 2006 Senate Democratic primary race (when Gore, Kerry et al wouldn’t), and who declared when he was getting Obama’s help that Obama was a blessing, and that he looked forward to helping Obama “reach to the stars and realize not just the dreams he has for himself, but the dreams we all have for him and our blessed country,” endorsed McCain instead of Obama?
Odd that the most prominent Democratic commentators didn’t assume that Lieberman’s preference for a white conservative, who diverges from Lieberman on almost every issue except the war in Iraq, was based on race, but instead assumed that Lieberman had a good reason for thinking McCain was the better candidate. When before had Lieberman ever endorsed a Republican candidate? So far as I know, he has done it only when the Democratic candidate would be female or (more likely) black.
Of course, I don’t believe Lieberman endorsed McCain because of race or gender, or even as revenge against the Democratic Party; he endorsed McCain because Lieberman considered “Islamic extremism” to be the overriding issue for this election. Similarly, Powell evidently thinks that the economy is an important issue for this election and that McCain has not shown much judgment on it (wanting to cap executive pay to $400k by law? saying Congress should institute binding shareholder votes on how much corporations should spend on R&D? describing a return to Clinton-era tax rates as “socialist”?).
It’s a pity that when a black moderate Republican endorses a black Democrat, Republicans assume racism, but when a white moderate Democrat endorses a white Republican, Republicans don’t think twice about it.
He said a lot of things that made sense and should be said. I just wish he hadn’t supported the same war, misrepresented facts (and like others blamed it on faulty intelligence) which helped promote the “necessity” of that war that took the soldier’s life he used in his story.
for what it’s worth, the picture he mentions is reproduced here.
So what? As someone who is involved in a current campaign race, I can say that this makes perfect sense.
Who do most people choose to be their advisers? Well, usually they choose people who share many (not all) of their worldviews and with whom they have a common thread. you don’t want or need sycophants and bootlickers, but you tend to choose people who share your goals and who have something to bring to the table.
And who do people choose to endorse? Well, , usually they choose people who share many (not all) of their worldviews and with whom they have a common thread. you don’t want or need a puppet, but you tend to choose people who share your goals and who have something to bring to the table.
So when those two classes of people get together, it is not at all uncommon for the endorsements and advising to be reciprocal. In fact, it would be odd if it it didn’t happen.
Take me: before I decided to help my candidate (I am doing a lot more than endorsing her) and before she decided to ask for my help, I vetted her on various issues and she did the same. And unsurprisingly, along with asking for my help in winning the election, she has also been asking me for considerable advice about positions, as she understands the benefit of differences of opinion.
Do you think this is improper?
I can’t find any survey that asks “Would you not vote for someone for President if they were a Moslem?”
It’s old (7/22/07), but there’s this one from the NYT. It asks “would you be less/more/equally likely to support a candidate who was…” for various characteristics; Muslim and homosexual tie at 46 percent less likely, and the less-likely leader is “doesn’t believe in God” at 63 percent. (Which last I find fairly horrifying, but we’ve done that dance before.) “Less likely” is not the same as “would never vote for,” of course, but I’d guess not that many people are absolutists — anecdotally some white voters are calling Obama a n***** while saying they’ll vote for him — and those who are might not cop to it as readily.
There’s a difference between Powell’s having advised the Obama campaign, as the campaign has acknowledged, and RonF’s statement that Powell is doing this “to get paid.” Most of the advisers to a campaign will be unpaid; only the few whom you see as giving press conferences etc. nonstop are going to be paid (as they should be for a full-time job that doesn’t allow for much outside employment). to say that Powell did this to get paid rather strongly implies that Powell did it for the money.
Of course, Powell obviously could have endorsed Obama much earlier if it had been just about race or Obama’s own positions; what seems to have caused the endorsement is Powell’s concern about the campaign McCain has been running since he picked Palin. As several commentators have noted, Powell really spent more time talking about the stuff that bothered him in the Republican Party than the stuff that drew him to Obama. I don’t think Powell would have endorsed Obama had McCain picked Lieberman as VP, but Palin is a big SCREW YOU to moderate, work-across-the-aisle, find-a-comprimise Republicans like Powell.
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