Colin Powell delivers an indictment of the McCain campaign and the GOP

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In an earlier post, David Safier wrote that General Colin Powell, after a lengthy deliberation, endorsed Barack Obama for president on Sunday. 

But it was much more than that, as Michael Bryan touched upon in his post about Powell’s MSNBC interview (see video). Powell delivered a stinging indictment of his long-time friend, John McCain, and the hateful fear mongering that has come to characterize the GOP. Oct. 19 – Meet the Press:

I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years. It has moved more to the right than I would like to see it…

In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem.  And that concerned me, sensing that he didn’t have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had.

I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin… 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.  And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.

I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower.

I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign.  But Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist.  Well, then, why do we keep talking about him?  And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted.  What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings.  And I think that’s inappropriate.

[I] think this goes too far.  And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow.  It’s not what the American people are looking for.  And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me.

[T]he party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift.

I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court…

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.

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’m troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

But to suggest that because Mr. Barack Obama had some contacts of a very casual nature [with Bill Ayers]–they sat on a educational board–over time is somehow connected to his thinking or his actions, I think, is a, a terrible stretch.  It’s demagoguery.

In his interview on MSNBC, Colin Powell referenced the venemous hate-filled interview of Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R- MN) channeling Sarah Palin’s stump speech on Hardball with Chris Matthews on Friday.

"And this business of, for example, a congress[woman] from Minnesota who’s going around saying let’s examine all congressmen to see who is pro-America or not pro-America.  We have got to stop this kind of nonsense and pull ourselves trogether and remember that our great strength is in our unity and in our diversity.  And so that really was driving me."

Here’s the video of Bachmann calling upon the media to investigate members of Congress to determine their "pro-America" views. The mask of rationality and civility that Republicans wear to fool the public was torn away to expose the ugly reality of the hate, fear, prejudice and bigotry that seethes within the Republican soul for anyone who does not agree with their narrow conservative worldview. 

Michelle Bachmann is giving voice to the right’s darkest impulses. And she is not alone. The GOP has fallen back on the demagoguery of Joe McCarthy as their last line of defense to an electoral defeat this November. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin have now resorted to calling Democrats Socialists, and commentators on the right are even using the oxymoronic term "Democratic Marxists." It is a Rovian attempt to polarize the electorate by demonizing Democrats, your fellow American citizens and your neighbors, to divide this country into "us" (pro-America Republicans) versus "them" (anti-America Socialists). And that ain’t "straight talk," my friends. That is the pure demagoguery of McCarthyism. It is pure hatred, and it is extremely poisonous. No wonder Colin Powell is so digusted with McCain and the GOP.

Gov. Palin continues to say in her stump speech that she loves to visit the "pro-America" areas of the country, which is code for heavily Republican areas of the country, as if only Republicans are patriotic and love their country. Senator Joe Biden destroys this utter nonsense from Palin: