Powell: Obama Camp's "War Hero?"

Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama today.

Obama supporters, sympathizers and acolytes are ecstatic.

But I don't get it.

Powell's spent his entire career ingratiating himself with the Power Elites, beginning already in Vietnam in 1968 when he led what even the DoD later admitted was a "whitewash" of the My Lai incident. His steady advance through field grade and general officer ranks was predicated on his reputation as being 100% for the Corps (alright, he was Army, but you get my meaning). Loyalty was his chief virtue, and he exposed its seamy underside with his slavish devotion to the Bushevik regime from his position as Sec.St., which loyalty he sustained even when the Bushies fired him.

So now this figure, much sullied, deservedly vilified, his reputation for principle in tatters, who lied to BOTH the UN and the American people, repeatedly and intentionally, and who was intimately involved in leading the US into the most disastrous clusterfuck of the last century, perhaps in the entire history of the nation, who was (and permitted himself to be) shamelessly exploited by the Mayberry mafia in the Bush regime (they ran him out to defend indefensible policies because attacks on the policies could be spun as attacks on Powell, who happens to be black; they did and do the same with Sleezy Rice, still), has changed allegiances and endorsed Obama.

This is the same fella who 'endorsed' WMD, and 'endorsed' mobile drug-production trailers, and who endorsed the ICORP, tout suite, is now on OUR side?

Why am I not all shaky with awe and gratitude?

APPENDIX I: (I composed this in the comments of another blog today. It expands one element of the foregoing)

The Cynic in me, never buried deeply, raises his ugly head, tastes the winds, and sniffs "opportunism." Powell's angling for another place at the Govt teat. Sec Def? SCOTUS from his lick-spittle obeisance to Bush/Cheney's international and domestic adventurism? Does he imagine himself a sort of 'Merlin' in the Pentagon, avuncularly and adroitly guiding the young prince Obama through--and gently, cheerily, perhaps even tunefully instructing him in--the rigors of a dangerous world? Is that what's in it for Powell?

Hold me apostate: I do not see how, if at all, much benefit accrues to the Candidate For Change from the endorsement of one of the architects of the crises in which, for the foreseeable future, we're slowly being entombed, like insects in tree resin...

Has Powell ever repudiated his UN speech, with the trailers and the aluminum tubes?

"A good soldier, following orders!"

Hmmmm....where have we heard that before???

At very BEST, Powell allowed himself to be used as a 'human shield' by the Busheviks, to deflect criticism by implication that ANY criticism was an ad hominem attack on Powell rather than a criticism of programs and policies themselves, independent of the mouth being manipulated. The Busheviks used and still use Rice the same way, tactically.

Powell is another bond to the community of continuity that the Candidate For Change has told us he intends, for OUR benefit, to disturb. Powell 'endorsed'--lent his reputation, such as it was, to providing credence for--a LOT of deeply bad, wrong, deadly, criminal shit.

So, how does the CFC benefit? Where does that "endorsement" count?

I wonder about stuff like that. Mebbe that's just me?