I'm no racist. I volunteered for Jesse Jackson in 1988.

I don't think anyone can seriously maintain that Powell would have endorsed Hillary. But Hillary is essentially the same as Obama on policy grounds. So what is the relevant difference between Hillary and Obama that explains why Powell endorsed Obama? Either it is race or gender. I'm giving Powell credit for not being a sexist which means it was race.

I don't actually hold that against him. If I were black I would vote for Obama just because he is black and it would redress the unfair obstacles any black candidate for president unfairly faces.

No I don't hold that against him. What I hold against Colin Powell is the fact that he is an unrepentant goddman WAR CRIMINAL who got a million human beings killed.

Get it?

Do you think he would have endorsed Hillary? She has almost the same positions as Obama. The Republicans would be just as evil with or without Obama.

Did I mention that Powell is a war criminal and his endorsement ought to be rejected as a matter of basic moral hygiene?

"Therefore it’s with great relief and gratitude that I applaud Colin Powell’s rather brave decision to support Senator Obama."

You're joking right? Please tell me you're joking.

Coming out 2 weeks before the election to support the black guy is the farthest thing from brave. You have to be an idiot to see that as brave. Sorry but you do.

Colin Powell is a war criminal. If Powell had resigned in protest from the Bush Administration and exposed the war crime conspiracy that would be one thing. But Powell did the opposite. He stayed and delivered the greatest Oscar winning propaganda performance of all time in support of an illegal war of aggression based on a hoax that got up to a million Iraqis killed.

Hey people! Forget the political tactics for just a second. Obama has this thing wrapped up anyway and he did before Powell endorsed him.

Forget the political tactics for just a second and think about what you are saying when you thank a Colin Powell, a war criminal. Just because its good for Obama, doesn't mean its good.

For Chrissakes where is your fundamental moral sense? I'm not advocating some impossible utopian moral standard here. I'm just saying don't applaud war criminals and don't honor them.

Is that really asking too much? Have we fallen that far?

"Mr. Obama called Mr. Powell at 10 a.m. to thank him for the endorsement and told him “how honored he was to have it,”

That does it for me. First Obama pussied out on FISA. Now he is palling around with a war criminal like Colin Powell, who fits the description of a mass murdering terrorist as well as anyone. I have 0 respect for Obama.

I am cool with a little bit of tactical triangulation here and there. But Obama has no excuse for any further triangulation on Iraq and certainly not triangulation on this Orwellian scale. Up until today, I was able to resign myself to Obama caving on FISA and was going to vote for him over McCain anyway.

But no more. I will not vote for anyone who goes so far as to honor a war criminal publicly. It sounds like he might even consider offering Powell a place in his Administration. I can hang with a little triangulation when it amounts to shading your position on this or that or taking this or that inconsequential symbolic stand. But I can't hang with wholesale rewriting of history and desecration of morality -- and that's what rehabilitating Powell amounts to.

Sorry Obama. I can't follow you there. No way. No how.

As Mario Savio said, "There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels."

On what basis could you possibly diaagree, given what's on the public record?

"Colin Powell has a mixed history, and his conduct in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq is an indelible blot, which sadly caused a great many Arabs death, destruction and desolation. Even so, I do think he did something admirable today."

I have a totally different interpretation. I look at Colin Powell and I see someone whose reputation was inflated all along -- much like John McCain. So he has never been a hero in my eyes in the first place.

But far more importantly: "sadly caused a great many Arab deaths". That's putting it mildly for a man who was one of the primary perpatrators of the greatest hoax this nation has ever seen -- a hoax that led to an illegal war of aggression that resulted in the deaths of UP TO A MILLION Iraqis and thousands of Americans and, not to be discounted, uprooted millions of people from their homes and forced them to flee their own country.

This is a war crime on a massive scale.

Endorsing Obama at the 11th hour is a very small good work indeed when placed in the scales against a war crime that killed up to a MILLION people.

Colin Powell is a disgrace. And the fact that he can continue to appear on the national scene without being shamed and humiliated is nothing more than a measure of our country's guilt and degradation.

You may as well get the endorsement of Heinrich Himmler. Yes his endorsement has some cache along the lines of "even the liberal _______" but so what?

He's a fucking war criminal people! Not only that, he's a mite late isn't he? Obama already has this thing wrapped up. Let Powell go shed his crococile tears and give his crococdile endorsements somewhere else.

The man is a war criminal!