Commentary

I know, we’re told never to speak ill of the dead, but rather to show respect for someone who has died by not saying something untoward about the individual. After all he or she is no longer in a position to oppose us, and most of all, the dead  cannot defend themselves.

True to that belief, nearly everything I have heard or read about the late Colin Powell has been glowing in his memory. Similarly, it was true after the passing of John McCain, even in his role as a maverick.

I, too, am impressed with Powell’s rise from modest Jamaican immigrant means in Harlem, through the ranks of the military to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs without having graduated from West Point, before assuming a diplomatic role as secretary of state. Truly impressive. 

He is owed a debt of gratitude for his service; however, it doesn’t entitle him to speak an untruth on national television saying, “the president (Trump) has drifted away from the Constitution” without citing a single example.  With Powell’s public persona, viewers most likely assumed he was telling the truth.  To make matters worse, CNN’s host Jake Tapper did not press him on his statement.

During President Trump’s term, Democrats often repeated that statement along with their unsubstantiated remarks about him destroying our institutions, while they sought to assault the Constitution themselves.  They want to abolish the electoral college, increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court and take voting rules away from the states.

It was Trump, who respected the Supreme Court and a judiciary that honored the Constitution, while Democrats lean toward individuals who would legislate from the bench.

Powell, himself, drifted away from the Republican party over the years.  He supported Obama in 2008 and 2012 and endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Speaking at the Democrat National Convention in August 2020, Powell endorsed Biden, saying, “Our country needs a commander in chief who takes care of our troops.”  I could find no record of Powell’s view of Biden’s Afghan withdrawal that unnecessarily took the lives of 13 service members.

One month following Powell’s convention endorsement, 235 retired senior military officers, including eight four-star generals and admirals, backed Trump, warning that electing Biden would lead to growing influence of socialism and Marxism.

They believed Trump was “committed to a strong America,” and wrote, “As president he will continue to secure our borders, defeat our adversaries and restore law and order.”  How prophetic.

With Powell’s disdain for Trump, it wasn’t surprising to see him finally announce that he left the party after the January 6, 2021 protest in Washington.

Like Hillary Clinton, with her remark that Trump supporters were “deplorable,” Powell chose to attack “these people,” who he said “should’ve known better.”

“I wish he would just do what Nixon did, and that’s step down,” Powell said as he encouraged Republicans to tell Trump, “It’s over … the plane’s waiting for you, you’re out.”

During the Deep State effort to end Trump’s presidency with corrupt FBI agents working to prove his collusion with Russia, Powell was silent.  As he was when they destroyed the career of fellow general, Michael Flynn.

In its otherwise tribute to Powell, the Wall Street Journal editorial board did remind its readers of Powell’s “great disservice by keeping quiet about the sources of the 2003 leak of the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame, though he knew the leaker was his own deputy secretary Richard Armitage.”

The investigation damaged the Bush administration and led to the unfair prosecution of Scooter Libby, then Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff.

In 2018, President Trump issued a full pardon to Libby, believing he had been treated unfairly, something Trump was familiar with.

As I conclude this criticism of a man who has achieved so much in service of the nation, I am reminded of the famous quote of Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is married by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually survive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and what the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

God bless Colin Powell, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.