The point is... you shouldn't believe nearly anything anybody says.  Least of all a politician.

Also, I wouldn't say this is so much a case of how Colin Powell isn't a conservative anymore....

So much as it is a stark reality check about just how conservative Obama actually has been in comparison to his campaigning.

Outside of Obamacare... Obama's first term was basically a love letter to neocon/corporatist republicans like Colin Powell.

 Republicans can't really admit this because well... no way to win a campaign then with the few issues that they disagree on... (Obamacare, some civil rights issues, immigration.)

Though this is lost in the short term due to partisianship.  In the long term, historically Obama's terms will be seen as legitamizing the actions of the Bush years... bringing bi-partisian unity to Bush's most controversial "anti-freedom" laws.

Should a rich vs poor society come to pass like in the Obama campaign ads (which at this point is very possible actually) it will ironically be in no small part thanks to Barak Obama.

Unless his second term seems a RADICAL depature from his first... or if he loses, therefore they demonize the same things they were defending Obama for.

Obama did nothing really but bail out wallstreet and rich corporations and left the middle class and poor to the wolves, even going so far as to refuse a proposal by the Bush administration to force banks to write down mortgages.   To the point of where under his term 93% of all wealth created went to the super rich.

I mean... look at this graphic.

He went out of his way to screw the little guy, including passing a healthcare law that puts the burden on them to get health insurance or pay a penalty... What Obama is complaining about in his campaign was of his own creation... back when he had a full democratic majority.

and yet he gets to run on a populist message... because he's running against a rich white guy.

Mitt Romney could try his hardest and it's tough to believe he could make that 93% number worse.

I trust him just about as much as any other politician....which means, not much.

I stopped trusting his judgement the day he held up hand drawn vehicles as "proof" of Iraq's WMD programme at the UN and not a shred of solid photographic evidence in sight.

That's not really fair.

The vans he was talking about did exist... and there were photographic proof of their existence, he could of showed had he wanted.

It's just that said vans were Hydrogen generation vans and not Chemical Weapons vans.

If you watched FrontLine in the prelude to the war in Iraq, you'd have a different opinion.  Powell was opposed to the war and he fought against it, but was overwhelmed by the hawks in the Bush Administration that wanted war.  He's a soldier, he did his job, and he had the opportunity to leave he left.


If more people watched FrontLine they'd have a much better understanding of what is going on in this country, behind the scenes, than they really do.  You pay for PBS, you should watch it.

A) I saw it... I don't see your point...

B) Perhaps because... which post are you talking about?  I don't see how Frontline contradicts either post.

Outside which.  Powell himself admits that he beleived everything he said when he said it.  If he hadn't, he would of simply refused to have said it or resigned.  He always had the oppurtunity to leave.

He states as much himself.

To quote Colin Powell himself from his latest book....

“I get mad when bloggers accuse me of lying -- of knowing the information was false. I didn’t.”"

He smartly wanted to avoid war with Iraq, and he specifically went out of his way to exclude everything he knew was false depsite other adminisration officials wanted.  

However what he reported at the UN he 100% believed in.

Hence why he was so pissed off at "Curveball" and at the administration... most people when talking about iraq... doesn't even knowing who "Curveball" is.

Powell was furious with the Bush Administration for the way they lied to and manipulated him and everyone else. That's why he was able to leave with his credibility intact. Cheney directly pressured the CIA to get the NIE exactly the way he wanted it then set them up, and Powell, to take the fall.

Also, I have some respect for anyone in politics who isn't "party first", and doesn't depend on silly labels to make their decisions.

So, no solid photographic evidence. I rest my case. They were bullshitting, and they knew they were bullshitting, then they changed the whole justification for the invasion after the fact. Colin Powell was possibly the least willing conspirator in that whole charade, but he was a conspirator nonetheless. Hence can't really be trusted. You need to know who's pulling his strings before you can judge the worth of his word.

That's as solid of photographic evidence as you would ever get.

I mean what... do you want photos from inside?  If they had that you wouldn't need war because you could always just plant a bomb...

and no.  The facts don't really support the fact that they knew they were bullshitting... espiecally not Colin Powell.

The facts largely support the belief that a number of offials wanted war with Iraq so badly they were willing to believe an intellegence asset who intentionally lied because he wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein from his country.