Questioning Colin Powell's judgment

Pat Buchanan, writing in Investor's Business Daily, concludes that the only reason Colin Powell, the first black secretary of state, endorsed Barack Obama, the first black Democratic Party nominee for president, was race.

Never mind that Gen. Powell made the case on behalf of the Bush Administration before Congress and the United Nations for going to war in Iraq. Never mind that Obama made his political career out of opposing the war. They may differ on key issues, but they share the same skin color.

From Buchanan's column:

Yet, in hailing Barack as a "transformational figure" whose election would "electrify our country . . . (and) the world," Powell seems to testify to the centrality of Barack's ethnicity to his decision.

For what else is there about this freshman senator, who has no significant legislative accomplishment, to transform our politics and to electrify the world, other than the fact that he would be the nation's first African-American president?

Powell's endorsement follows that of another African-American icon, Rep. John Lewis of Selma Bridge fame, who switched allegiance from Hillary to Barack while Clinton still had a chance to win.

When Lewis deserted her in February, he, too, claimed a Road to Damascus experience, to have seen a transformational figure: "Something's happening in America, something some of us did not see coming .... Barack Obama has tapped into something that is extraordinary .... It's a movement. It's a spiritual event."

Lewis' desertion, however, was not unrelated to a primary challenge in his Atlanta district and angry constituent demands to know why he was not backing the first black with a real chance at winning the White House.

Powell was under no such pressure. Hence, what he did, and why, are subjects of media and political speculation.

Read the full column, "Powell Based His Position On Ethnicity," at the newspaper's Web site.