{"id":64,"date":"2008-10-18T11:00:06","date_gmt":"2008-10-18T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/powell-endorsement-imminent.html"},"modified":"2008-10-18T11:00:06","modified_gmt":"2008-10-18T11:00:06","slug":"powell-endorsement-imminent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/powell-endorsement-imminent.html","title":{"rendered":"Powell endorsement imminent?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colin Powell is going to be on Meet The Press on Sunday morning, and speculation is rife that he will endorse Barack Obama<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Retired Gen. Colin Powell, once considered a potential running mate for
\nSen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now may endorse his opponent, Sen. Barack
\nObama (D-Ill.), according to Republican sources. But an air of mystery
\nsurrounds Powell’s planned live appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the
\nPress,” and no one is sure what he will say. <\/p>\n

Powell’s unassailable national security credentials could sway voters
\nwho are vacillating about whether Obama is ready to be commander in
\nchief, and his endorsement of the Illinois senator would make a
\nnational security emphasis by McCain in the election’s closing days
\nextremely difficult. <\/p>\n

Powell, 71, a professional soldier for 35 years, has advised the last three Republican presidents. <\/p>\n

The general’s camp is being coy about what he might or might not say on
\nSunday. But some McCain advisers suspect, without being sure, that
\nPowell will endorse Obama. <\/p>\n

“It’s going to make a lot of news, and certainly be personally
\nembarrassing for McCain,” a McCain official said. “It comes at a time
\nwhen we need momentum, and it would create momentum against us.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Powell has certainly been very high-visibility of late. In an African-American festival in London past Tuesday, he was seen on stage doing an impromptu hip-hop dance, which is an image that my brain has difficulty processing. More importantly, he also made a equally rare statement about racial self-identity<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Powell
\n— who has yet to back a candidate — told the audience: “I stand before you as an African-American. Many people have said
\nto me you became secretary of state of the USA, is it still necessary to say that you are an African American or that you
\nare black? And I say yes, so that we can remind our children.”<\/p>\n

“It
\ntook a lot of people struggling to bring me to this point in history,”
\nPowell told the audience. “I didn’t just drop out of the sky. People
\ncame from my continent in chains.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s likely that Powell is also thinking about his legacy – after all, he was once considered a front-runner for the GOP nomination back in 2000, only to decide not to run. Bush was elected instead, and tapped Powell’s credibility to buttress the WMD-driven case for war against Iraq. Since it is now known that there were no WMD, Powell’s credibility practically vanished overnight. I think he may see endorsing Obama as a kind of redemption, a chance to play kingmaker of sorts.Let’s see what happens tomorrow morning… I haven’t had the urge to watch MTP in years, but the prospect of Powell’s endorsement is going to give MTO a solid ratings boost, I suspect… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colin Powell is going to be on Meet The Press on Sunday morning, and speculation is rife that he will endorse Barack Obama: Retired Gen. Colin Powell, once considered a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now may endorse his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), according to Republican sources. But an air of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[115,38,26,95],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purple-politics","tag-colin-powell","tag-obama","tag-politics","tag-presidential-election"],"yoast_head":"\nPowell endorsement imminent? - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Powell endorsement imminent? - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Colin Powell is going to be on Meet The Press on Sunday morning, and speculation is rife that he will endorse Barack Obama: Retired Gen. Colin Powell, once considered a potential running mate for Sen. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}