Former Powell Aide Calls BushCo activities High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Lawrence Wilkerson, the former aide to Colin Powell called Cheney and Bush’s actions high crimes and misdemeanors. For those of you playing along at home, those are the grounds for impeachment in the Constitution.
You compare Bill Clinton’s peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush’s high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney’s high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance.
I do love when they start eating their own.
Tags: Bush
You have to wonder at Colin Powell’s colossal lack of judgment in accepting a role in the Bush Administration. If he had said No, by now he could have been the savior who helped the Republicans extract themselves from Iraq, and then probably a two-term president.
Powell is and always has been nothing but an over hyped and over rated yes man.
I have to say that I thought that Powell was the “Killer App” of the Republican party until Iraq. Then he committed political suicide by going in front of the U.N. and lying. He was the only Bush admin official that had any respect for world opinion and the squander that is par for this administration.
Bush (Rove) has been a genius at co-opting and destroying any potential Republican moderates that might emerge as competition or critical voices within the party. Powell, Ridge, Whitman… These were people with significant policy differences with Bush who might have run in the 2004 primary, but didn’t in part because of their records within Bush Administration.
Whitman a moderate? Give me a break. Ridge, maybe. Powell? I thought he was smarter than what he turned out to be. He flushed any chance of higher office down the tube.
Powell is and always has been nothing but an over hyped and over rated yes man.
The General from “Mars Attacks”
I don’t think Bush (Rove) had to work too hard to co-opt him. Like everyone else who worked for Bush, (or voted for Bush, or did not work hard enough to defeat Bush), Powell probably figured “what’s the worst that could happen.”
The dynamics within the inner circle make interesting reading. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, on one hand; Powell, Tenet, and Armitage on the other. One observer said “W” seemed like a little kid at the head of the table; he had the nervous habit of always jiggling his leg.
The principals would argue their cases and state their points, while the others in the room sat in silence and waited their turn. At no time was any pushing back allowed to test the hypothesis’s being offered.
As for Powell’s UN address, he was asked personally by Bush to deliver it, because only he had the credibility to pull it off. Can you imagine Cheney speaking before the world body?
As for agreeing to do it, remember, Powell was a soldier first. And a good soldier, always follows orders. As for the facts in the speech, Powell was adamant that the facts be checked first. The CIA obligingly did, and reported that the claims being made were not warranted. Those passages were expunged. But someone, best guess is Scooter Libbey, had them put back in. Powell never knew of this and assumed that what he said, had the full support of the CIA. Tenet says he fell out of his chair when he heard that speech…………..