Colin Powell: the Anti-Lieberman

Look at how the GOPers are wailing and gnashing their teeth at the news their one-time favorite for President Gen. Colin Powell has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for our nation's top job.

The entire right-wing "commentariat" is aghast at the idea that President Bush's first-term Secretary of State and, earlier, the popular choice to run for President against Bill Clinton, has broken with his party to make a "principled choice" on who should be President.

Pat Buchanan and George Will insist the decision was racially motivated. And Rush Limbaugh basically shat himself upon hearing the news (or he would have, were it not for the flood of constipation-inducing opiates coursing through his system) and, in his typically confused fashion, claimed:

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail. "OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with.

He then goes on to state that Powell "dislikes" Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, so apparently Rush's take on skin color only matters when talking about Democrats. Somebody should spring a drug test on the guy; I'd bet my boat that Limbaugh is pissing pure Oxycontin.

But the main value of Powell's endorsement lies in the perception that he crossed longtime party lines to endorse Obama, and he feels strongly enough about his choice that he's willing to break with his longtime GOP friends to do so.

Contrast this to Joe Lieberman's claim that he is a Democrat supporting John McCain. Forget that Lieberman voluntarily left the party after losing the primary to Ned Lamont back in 2006, forming an independent party and working in concert with the GOP to assure his continued presence in the Senate. His reelection was a direct result of the GOP abandoning their properly nominated candidate for Senate, Alan Schlesinger, and giving Lieberman all the massive resources of the Republican party and high-profile GOP strategists like Karl Rove and fund raisers like Mel Sembler and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. So, for Lieberman to lie and say he's still a Democrat like he did at the Republican National Convention is patently ridiculous.

Colin Powell, on the other hand, has shown a level of honesty and principle that should embarrass Joe Lieberman by comparison. Powell isn't a power-hungry, overly-ambitious, hang-on-at-all-costs politician like Lieberman. He's someone who soberly and seriously evaluated the two candidates, and then made his decision on what's best for the country, not his career.

Joe Lieberman, by comparison, is simply a sad little man and a noxious joke on the American people. He'll be forever known as a man who desperately reached for greatness, but never attained it.