After reading "Deserter at the Helm!" over at In These Times I'm given to wonder, "What the hell happened to Colin Powell?". According to the article, before joining the Bush administration Powell wrote in his memoirs:

"I can never forgive a leadership that said, in effect: 'These young men - poor, less educated, less privileged - are expendable (someone described them as 'economic cannon fodder'), but the rest are too good to risk."

"I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well placed - managed to wrangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."

So just what the hell happened to him? Also isn't this the exact same message that Michael Moore put across in Fahrenheit 9/11 - rich white guys putting poor fodder units (as Bush Snr calls the rest of us) in the line of fire for their own pocket books. I think that Powell actually still believes these things and he is another Richard Clarke waiting to happen. What error of judgment he made in joining the Bush administration could easily be reversed. Imagine this scenario: Bush is re-elected and with an additional 4 year mandate he is so cocky that he will decide he no longer needs that additional token black face in his administration and let Powell go. Then Powell will have plenty of time for revising his memoirs...

I say that the next time a question comes up for Kerry to answer about Swift boats or Bush's AWOL status, Kerry should read out Powell's quote in full and thank him for the inspiration. Then he should call on Powell to do the honorable thing and resign. In the same breath Kerry should make a public offer to Powell to come and do the same job for the Kerry administration.

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