Tag Archives: Colin Powell

local news, political news

No predictions coming for this year’s mayoral contest

You can’t miss them. They’re sprouting up everywhere, kind of like that spring clover you see on the High Plains of Texas.

Lawn signs touting the candidacy of Ginger Nelson have shown up all over our neighborhood. I expect more of them.

Nelson is running for mayor of Amarillo. She’s already earned my vote. I make no apologies for deciding this early.

Now comes the question, which I received today: Do I think she’s going to win?

I am not predicting nothin’. No way. No how. No never mind.

She should win. She’s got a detailed campaign platform. She has a lengthy to-do list of items she wants accomplished during her time as mayor … if she wins, of course.

If you haven’t seen her platform, take a look right here.

Why won’t I predict her victory? Because my record at such things is terrible! That’s why.

* I once wrote that Hillary Rodham Clinton was set to roll to a potentially historic landslide victory for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Umm, she didn’t.

* I also wrote that there was no way on God’s Earth that Donald “Smart Person” Trump ever would be nominated for — let alone elected — president of the United States. Hah! Silly me.

* I once wrote that Hillary never would run for the U.S. Senate in 2000 because, after all, many of those senators voted to convict her husband of the “impeachable offense” of lying about his affair with what’s-her-name. She did run — and she won.

* I also once said Army Gen. Colin Powell would run for president in 1996 against Hillary’s husband. He opted out.

So, you see, I am terrible at these parlor games.

Nelson should win. She has the backing of some influential folks in Amarillo. She’s got the experience from her time on the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. She has the smarts and the professional background as a lawyer and businesswoman to move the city forward. She has the speaking skill and public presence required to use her office as a bully pulpit.

Am I going to predict such a thing?

No way, man! I’ll just hope for the best.

national news, political news

‘Damn e-mails’ return to center stage

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mails

Back in the old days, when Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Rodham Clinton actually were treating each other nicely, Sanders offered this often-quoted quip: “I am tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.”

I’ve got bad news for you, Sen. Sanders. We’re going to hear about those “damn e-mails” for a while longer.

The State Department’s inspector general has issued a report that says then-Secretary of State Clinton flouted department policy in her use of a personal e-mail server when communicating about State Department issues.

Does this doom Clinton’s assured nomination as the next Democratic Party presidential nominee? No. It’s going to damage her. Why? Republicans will make sure of it.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/281192-watchdog-agency-hits-clinton-top-aides-on-records-policy

I am not giving this report the short shrift. I get the concern about policy violations. What’s unclear to me, though, is whether any of the information Clinton passed on her personal server ever was captured by our nation’s enemies? Did any of them ever use that information to harm our national security?

What’s more, as Clinton has said in pushing back, other secretaries of state have used personal e-mail accounts. Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright? They did, too.

Did they ever compromise national security? I haven’t heard evidence of it regarding those officials, either.

http://thehill.com/regulation/national-security/281220-clinton-campaign-insists-email-setup-not-unique

I was troubled when word came out about the use of personal e-mail servers to convey public information. My major concern then was whether information actually compromised our national security. All the congressional inquiries and probes haven’t yet made that determination.

However, that won’t stop the chatter and the intense criticism. It goes with the political territory.

Bernie Sanders’ wish won’t come true any time soon.

 

national news, political news

Timing of e-mail classification now becomes key

hillary-emails

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s decision to use her personal e-mail account was problematical, to say the least.

Now we might be finding out why it has caused the secretary of state so many problems.

She’s running for the presidency. The U.S. State Department issued a statement this past week that several e-mails that went out on that account were “top secret” in nature.

Yes, I am concerned about the use of that personal account, just like a lot of folks are concerned. My major concern is whether any of that top secret information ended up in the hands of hackers who might have broken into that account. Those things do happen, you know.

The question of the moment, though, is this: When did State decide to classify the messages as top secret?

Clinton has said all along that she didn’t send classified material on her personal account. She stands by that contention to this day. Moreover, she has said she did what previous secretaries of state have done. It didn’t come up when, say, Colin Powell was running the State Department.

To be sure, this matter has worsened the trust issue that is dogging her campaign in the very late stages of the campaign leading up to Monday night’s Iowa caucuses.

Let us not get ahead of ourselves.

I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt over whether she sent the material out on her personal account knowing they were top secret.

Clinton said she didn’t jeopardize our national security.

Let’s ask the question: Were these e-mails re-classified just in recent days?

 

national news, political news

VP teeters on brink of huge decision

biden

Vice President Joe Biden is giving me heartburn.

Will he run for president in 2016 … or not?

I’ll stipulate up front that I’m not going to predict what he’ll do. I didn’t think Democrat Hillary Clinton would run for the U.S. Senate in 2000 after she and her husband left the White House; she did. I thought Republican Colin Powell might run for president in 1996; he didn’t.

I’ve waffled on the vice president’s immediate political future so much I’m giving myself motion sickness.

Biden ponders run

Part of me wants him to run. I happen to like the vice president and admire his long record of public service — gaffes and all.

He’s experienced immense personal tragedy, with the deaths in 1972 of his wife and daughter in a car crash that injured his two sons; then came the death of his older son, Beau, of brain cancer just a few months ago.

Biden has shown courage and grace in the face of these tragic events.

Another part of me, though, wants him to avoid being labeled for the rest of his life as a “loser” if he fails to win the Democratic nomination. Clinton is the frontrunner, although she’s been damaged by controversy involving e-mails and Benghazi. Biden has run twice already, in 1988 and again in 2008.

Joe Biden isn’t the perfect alternative to Clinton, but he’ more perfect than, say, socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s polling quite well these days head to head against Clinton.

Only the vice president and his family know what he’ll decide. He’s expected to announce his plans within the next 10 days or so.

As tempting as it is in this forum to try to guess out loud what he’ll do, I’ll remain quiet. It’s Joe Biden’s call to make all by himself.

It’s clear that Biden wants to be president. It’s not at all clear whether he believes he’s got what it takes to derail the frontrunner.

I’m trying to imagine the immense pressure that accompanies a decision like the one facing the vice president. I can’t comprehend it.

You do what your heart tells you to do, Mr. Vice President.

 

International news

Powell endorses Iran nuclear deal

colin-powell

In another era, an endorsement of a controversial foreign policy agreement by Colin Powell might carry some weight among other members of Powell’s political party.

It won’t this time. In fact, and you might have to wait for it, you well could hear someone suggest that Powell’s endorsement doesn’t matter at all because he endorsed Barack Obama’s two successful elections as president of the United States.

Does it matter, though, that the former secretary of state remains a loyal Republican? Oh … maybe. Then again, maybe not.

Powell said today on “Meet the Press”: “The great concern from the opposition is that we’re leaving open a lane for Iran to create a nuclear weapon in 10 to 15 years. The reality is that they have been on a super highway for the last 10 years to create a nuclear weapon … with no speed limit.”

He said he’s studied the deal in detail, pored over it thoroughly and has concluded that this agreement is better than what we had before, which was nothing.

The retired four-star U.S. Army general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calls the agreement brokered by the Obama administration a “pretty good deal.”

It’s not perfect, he said. But he’ll settle gladly for a diplomatic solution over a military one.

Given that he’s endured combat — serving two tours of duty as an infantry officer during the Vietnam War — I’ll accept his endorsement.

national news, political news

E-mail controversy isn't yet a 'scandal'

Hillary Clinton’s e-mail dustup just won’t go away.

Former House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had sent the former secretary of state a letter asking about her use of a personal e-mail account. Clinton didn’t respond.

Fox News Channel’s “crawl” across the TV screen, quite naturally, referred to it as a “scandal.”

Hold on. We’re not there. We may never get there.

This is what happens, though, when a candidate declares his or her intention to run for high office. In this case, it’s the highest office in the most powerful country on Earth.

Thus, the e-mail matter is going to keep boiling and roiling.

Is it a “scandal,” which the right-wing mainstream media want to describe it? No. It’s a controversy that needs some more fleshing out.

Clinton admits to using a personal e-mail account to do public business while running the State Department. That was a dumb call. She should have used the government account, which was hers to use. But she wasn’t the first high-ranking Cabinet official to rely on personal e-mail accounts.

Has anyone thought to subpoena former secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condi Rice? Oh, I forgot. They aren’t running for president … nor are they Democrats.

Let’s cool our jets here. Controversy? Yes. Scandal? Not even close.

 

media news, national news

HRC turns over 55,000 emails; Colin Powell, none

A friend distributed this tweet, from Joe Conason, a liberal columnist who wonders about the Hillary Clinton email flap.

“If Beltway press isn’t satisfied that @HillaryClinton turned over 55K emails, why don’t they care that Colin Powell turned over ZERO?”

I think I know the answer.

Colin Powell isn’t considering a run for the presidency in 2016; Hillary Clinton is likely to declare her White House candidacy in a month, maybe two.

That’s the reason for the interest.

Colin Powell served as secretary of state during the first term of the George W. Bush administration. He used a personal email account, just as Clinton did. In no way does that justify anything, other than to suggest that the media have this way of applying double standards whenever and wherever possible — and against whomever they feel like doing so.

I suppose if Powell, a retired Army general as well, were to decide to run for president, then he’d become fair game, too.

International news

No, Mr. President, we aren't safer

I’d like to take issue with former President George W. Bush about whether we’re safer because we invaded Iraq in 2003.

He says we are. I contend we are not.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/12/george-bush-saddam-hussein-iraq-war_n_6146280.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

The ex-president told National Public Radio that the world might have had a nuclear Iraq had Saddam Hussein been allowed to stay in power. Is that to be believed in its entirety? It stands as the Mother of All Hypotheticals.

One of the pretexts for going to war was that Saddam was building a nuclear arsenal. When we arrived, we found zero evidence of it, just as we found none of the weapons of mass destruction that Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted were there.

We weren’t greeted as “liberators,” as Cheney had predicted. The nation erupted into violence — against Americans and against the government we helped install.

More than a decade later, and after nearly 5,000 Americans died in battle, the nation is now falling apart because of the sectarian violence that never really was extinguished.

And the former president now blames his successor, Barack Obama, for the rise of the Islamic State because we didn’t leave enough troops in the field to tamp down the terrorist threat.

I contend once again that the world isn’t safer because we invaded a sovereign country, overthrew a sovereign leader — yes, he was a very bad man — and built a nation essentially from scratch.

U.S. policy instead created a breeding ground for the kind of violence we’re now seeing because we believed a society with no history of democratic rule was able to understand fully the immensely difficult task of creating and maintaining freedom.

Are we safer because of this monumental blunder? Hardly.

 

 

Uncategorized

Hillary is too 'centrist'?

What a strange problem to have.

Hillary Rodham Clinton likely will run for president in 2016. The right wing detests her, which is a given. Now we hear that the left wing isn’t crazy about her, although she’d be a far better alternative to whomever the Republicans likely will nominate in two years.

Hillary leaves left cold

The way I see it, the former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state is positioning herself in a position to actually win the White House. By my calculation, that means she’ll have to reach toward the center — which by definition means she’ll lean away from those on the far left of the Democratic Party.

Does this remind you of anything or anyone? I’m reminded a bit of her husband, the 42nd president of the United States, Bill Clinton. Do you recall the term “triangulation,” which defined the tactic of playing both extremes against each other to craft a centrist domestic and foreign policy? My trick knee suggests Mrs. Clinton might be willing to perform the same sort of balancing act.

Will the left-wing base of the party find a suitable alternative candidate? There’s talk of Sen. Elizabeth Warren or of Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who really is a thinly veiled Democrat.

I consider it a pipe dream if those on the left think they’re going to derail the Hillary Juggernaut.

The only possible way Hillary Clinton would appease anyone on the right would be for her to switch parties and become a Republican. That’s not a sure thing, though, as some GOP folks would concoct some goofy conspiracy theory.

In the end, the left will come around, just as the right comes around whenever the Republicans seek to nominate a centrist for president.

My own view is that centrist policies speak to what Colin Powell once referred to as the vast ocean of middle-ground opinion where most Americans find themselves.

It’s also a formula for winning an election.

Uncategorized

Liar, liar …

Let’s talk briefly one more time about lies and lying.

President Obama’s critics accuse him of “lying” about the Affordable Care Act, specifically about the pledge he made that Americans can “keep their doctor if they so wish.” It turns out, with the unveiling of the ACA, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Republicans jumped all over Obama for “lying” to Americans.

The dictionary defines “lying” as the intentional telling of an untruth. To suggest someone is lying is to know beyond a doubt the person made a statement knowing it is untrue.

Did the president knowingly assert the “keep-your-doctor” pledge knowing it wasn’t necessarily true? I don’t know, and neither do his critics.

I also need to revisit one more time the so-called “lies” President Bush told us about whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The president used WMD as a reason for going to war.

We invaded Iraq in March 2003, looked high and low for those WMD. We found none.

Intelligence analysts all over the world said Saddam had the WMD. Secretary of State Colin Powell said so in a statement to the United Nations. Were they lying? Did they purposely tell a falsehood? I don’t know that any more than I know that Barack Obama “lied” about the ACA.

I just have grown weary of the casual use of this particular “L” word.

How about cooling it until someone can produce incontrovertible proof that he or she is a true-blue mind reader?