The Party of Colin Powell
by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
May 13, 2009
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5575/the-party-of-colin-powell
A PROMINENT SUPPORTER of Barack Obama told a Washington audience last week that
the Republican Party is in deep trouble and getting smaller and smaller
because its views are not in sync with those of mainstream Americans.
Republicans would do better without the nastiness of Rush Limbaugh or the
very polarizing Sarah Palin, the speaker said, and they would do well to
realize that their philosophy of lower taxes and limited government has put
them out of step with their fellow citizens.
Americans do want to pay taxes for services, he told his audience. Americans
are looking for more government in their life, not less.
There is nothing particularly unusual about Democrats deprecating conservatism
or endorsing big government, but these comments didn't come from a Democrat.
The speaker was Colin Powell, who claims to be a Republican.
There are times when party loyalty asks too much, JFK once said, but for Powell
there rarely seems to be a time when it doesn't. Though he owes every lofty
position he has held -- national security advisor, four-star general, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretary of state -- to Republican presidents,
Republicans perpetually appear to rub him the wrong way: especially the
conservative Republicans who constitute the party's base.
This is not the first time Powell has urged the GOP to become more liberal.
There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views, he said
during a televised interview in December, but Republicans must begin appealing
to Hispanics, to blacks, to Asians . . . and not just try to influence them by
Republican principles and dogma. He complained that Republicans had moved
further to the right -- something he also complained about last October, when
he went on Meet the Press to endorse the presidential candidacy of the most
liberal member of the US Senate.
Nor is this the first time Powell has denounced Limbaugh.
Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh? he asked on CNN a few weeks after
throwing his support to Obama. Is this really the kind of party that we want
to be, when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts
rather than our better instincts?
I wonder if Powell has ever actually listened to Limbaugh. Some years back, the
liberal Washington Post columnist William Raspberry wrote a piece in which he
compared Limbaugh to the racist politicians he remembered from his Mississippi
youth. He accused him of demagoguery and of trafficking in the raw meat of
bigotry.
Eleven days later, Raspberry took it back.
Rush, I'm sorry, he wrote. He admitted that he had written the first column
without ever having tuned in to Limbaugh's program, and that his opinions
about him had come largely from other people. But when readers challenged him
to listen to Limbaugh for a while and make up his own mind, he had done so --
and now regretted having so unfairly maligned the man. Limbaugh might be
smart-alecky, a master of ridicule who loved to rattle liberal cages. But
as Raspberry had to admit, he was certainly no hater or bigot.
Perhaps if Powell spent less time reflexively deriding the country's most
popular conservatives and more time listening to their message, he might admit
something similar.
But probably not. Powell's antipathy to the GOP's Reaganite roots has gone
beyond the point of reason and reflection. What kind of Republican, after all,
preaches that Americans do want to pay taxes for services and are looking
for more government in their life, not less? (The opposite is true: In a
nationwide poll last month, 62 percent of respondents said they prefer a
government that offers fewer services and lower taxes; only 28 percent
preferred more services and higher taxes.) What kind of Republican calls John
McCain my beloved friend and acknowledges that he would be a good president
-- then turns around and endorses the most liberal Democrat ever nominated for
president?
Republicans these days are in the midst of a debate over how best to rebuild
their party, and there are honest differences over what Republicanism should
mean.But there are also limits. Powell may sincerely believe that embracing
bigger government, higher taxes, and Barack Obama is the formula for success,
but most Republicans don't. Most Democrats, on the other hand, do. If party
loyalty asks too much, maybe it's time for Powell to switch.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)
Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to
take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic
purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and
sacrifice for that freedom. - John F. Kennedy
Extremism in defense of liberty
