Colin Powell backs Obama

Now, they are not completely stupid the neo-conservatives, are they? Indeed, I am apt to think about the wee bit in the film "Trainspotting" where the hero, Mark Renton, I think it was, gets fed up with his mates boasting about how great Scotland is and the Scots are, and, loosing his temper, shouts at them telling them that they are the biggest wankers on the planet and that they must be the biggest wankers on the planet as they have the next biggest wankers on the planet, the English, running them. Anyway, there was Dick and George shoving Colin in front of the UN to give a little presentation on Saadam Hussein's WMDs and Colin pointing to satellite pictures of things that appeared to be trucks and buses and dustbins and sheds and things like that and saying things like, "Well, I know that to you and me it looks like a shed but ....... " Christ, they are at it again with Iran! Anyway, there was Colin and there was me thinking, "this guy is either a complete idiot or he thinks that we are complete idiots and he is just as big a criminal as George and Dick. Yes, the neo-conservatives might be fools but the evidence would seem to suggest that there are even bigger fools out there. Me, I came to the conclusion that Colin is not an idiot and that he knew that the shed he was pointing at was a shed and the bus he was pointing at was a bus and the truck he was pointing at was a truck and the dustbin he was pointing at was a dustbin. Moreover, I even forgave him for treating us all as idiots because, all in all, just like most of the Scottish deserve the English, most of us deserve to be treated like idiots. Nevertheless, I wasn't in a hurry to forgive a man, who obviously has a brain, his participation in what was basically a war crime. Still, maybe if Colin hadn't been around, Dick and George in their heyday would have been tempted to nuke someone.
Whatever else, the evidence would seem to suggest that Colin is not a fool and with that in mind the news of him backing Obama has to be welcomed and if we think standing in front of the world press and the UN General Assembly and pointing to dustbins and sheds and buses and trucks and dustbins and telling all and sundry that these are installations where WMDs are hidden requires maverick diplomatic skills, the language Colin used today to underline why he is backing Obama shows that he still has those skills. Refering to Sarah Palin, he says, "“She’s a very distinguished woman, and she’s to be admired, but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president.”1 No, Colin knows that she is an absolute fool and he might even also know, that should she ever have her heyday, she might do something even sillier than starting a couple of illegal wars. Perhaps, Colin's support for Obama will persuade some of the fools who are about to vote for Palin to change their minds and if I ever get the chance to sit on that tribunal to judge Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell for crimes against humanity, I might just accept Colin's plea that he stayed in office to prevent worse happening.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/us/politics/20campaign.html?hp