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Chris Mathews and Kathleen Parker and a host of other Right-Wing enablers are simply bowing to the political wind.
There are so many levels of absurdity in this political madness its hard to know where to start.
The election is already over Obama is just a Wallstreet tool:
.....The real election in Bill Clinton's case took place after his election, when he swiftly indicated surrender by making Goldman Sachs's Robert Rubin his treasury secretary. By May 1993 he had signaled his total submission to the Wall Street banks and the end of any pretense--thin from the get-go--of economic change or social reform.
This year the economic crisis demanded an early real election, designed to fend off the admittedly very remote possibility--Rubin is Barack Obama's close economic adviser--that Obama, victorious in the November 4 election, might claim a reformer's mandate and seek to prize loose the stranglehold of Wall Street financiers on the economy.
On September 23 Obama stated on NBC that the crisis and the prospect of a huge bailout required bipartisan action and meant he likely would have to delay expansive spending programs outlined during his campaign for the White House. Thus did he surrender power even before he gained it. Simultaneously, McCain, endorsing the bailout, destroyed a golden opportunity to revive his candidacy by placing himself at the head of the Republican revolt and seizing the popular mood, which was and remains one of vitriolic fury at Wall Street and the bailout.
Dissent dwindled rapidly in the press as the Accredited Commentariat, from George Will on the right to Paul Krugman in the center, declared the bailout odious but necessary. The rebellion of the House Republicans was an unexpected bump in the road. They were execrated as "irresponsible" along with the ninety-five Democrats who joined them.....
www.thenation.com/doc/20081027/cockburn
........ ..............
Most of us,hopefully, remember Powell telling about the Saddam's bioweapons. His lies didn't begin there....
Powell's mysterious role in My Lai:
...Powell has never been implicated in any of the wrongdoing involving My Lai. No evidence ties him to the attempted cover-up. But he was part of an institution (and a division) that tried hard to keep the story of My Lai hidden--a point unacknowledged in his autobiography. Moreover, several months before he was interviewed by Sheehan, Powell was ordered to look into allegations made by another former GI that US troops had "without provocation or justification" killed civilians. (These charges did not mention My Lai specifically.) Powell mounted a most cursory examination. He did not ask the accuser for more specific information. He interviewed a few officers and reported to his superiors that there was nothing to the allegations . This exercise is not mentioned in his memoirs.
Powell notes that "My Lai was an appalling example of much that had gone wrong in Vietnam.... The involvement of so many unprepared officers and non-coms led to breakdowns in morale, discipline, and professional judgment--and to horrors like My Lai--as the troops became numb to what appeared to be endless and mindless slaughter." Yet he is silent on how the military brass (including himself) responded to the horrors. Too often, in-the-field warriors who witnessed or engaged in tragedies or atrocities involving civilians--men like Bob Kerrey and his fellow SEALs--kept their secrets. Too often, their superiors--men like Powell--were not interested in unearthing these awful truths (which usually were the results of their orders and demands), and certainly they had no desire to share that side of the war with the public. The willful denial of the war's managers is as much a part of the dark memory of Vietnam as the lethal misdeeds and mistakes of the soldiers....
This and the following are worth reading if you want to know something about Powell
Colin Powell's Vietnam FogColin Powell's Vietnam Fog. By David Corn ... The Old Revolutionaries of Vietnam ... In reviewing Colin Powell's military service recently, ...
www.thenation.com/doc/20010514/corn20010502
..... ......
Here is some more on Powell's role in the coverup. Time and again he has been shown to be a tool.
...Although Powell's attempt to cover up the massacre was unsuccessful, he had at least proven his willingness to do what was necessary to please his bosses. For his two tours of duty in Vietnam, Powell, who was never exposed to serious combat, was awarded the Purple Heart for a minor foot wound he received after stepping on a "punji stick." He was later awarded a Bronze Star for heroism and the Soldiers Medal for pulling two men free from a non-combat related helicopter crash.
After returning from Vietnam, the ambitious young officer attended George Washington University, courtesy of the Army, and received an MBA degree. A year later, in 1972, Powell was one of 17 persons hand picked by Washington insiders from more than 1,500 military and civilian applicants for White House fellowships. He was assigned to work for Frank Carlucci, who was at that time deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Casper Weinberger, budget director. The two became Powell's champions in Washington's power circles.
Powell was just beginning to earn his degree in political treachery studying under Carlucci and Weinberger when President Richard Nixon made a politically convenient decision to ignore high level intelligence which told of large numbers of American prisoners of war being held back as hostages by the communist Vietnamese and their Laotian puppets after the war ended. Nixon's decision to declare all "missing" Americans dead caused a controversy which has plagued Washington decision makers to this day.....
Colin Powell: Not the Man You Think
www.usvetdsp.com/story13.htm
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