Colin Powell, Reporting for Duty

“THE DEFINITION OF PROPAGANDA”

by Joseph DeMaio, ©2020

(Jun. 7, 2020) — Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…, here we go again.

It was only a matter of time before Colin Powell spoke out – once more – against President Trump.  Today, speaking with Jake Tapper on the CNN show “State of the Union,” Powell attacked President Trump on a variety of fronts.  He expressed agreement with the comments of retired General John Allen, who stated that he “never believed that the Constitution was under threat until recently.”  Powell agreed with Allen and stated that “[w]e have a Constitution.  And we have to follow that Constitution.  And the President has drifted away from it.”

Really?  If there has been a “drifting away from the Constitution,” it has not come as a result of anything President Trump has done.  If Powell is looking for events constituting a “drifting away from the Constitution,” he need look no farther than the Deep State outrages surrounding the soft coup recently attempted against the president.  In addition, it appears that even four-star retired generals and former Secretaries of State are beginning to succumb to Trump Derangement Syndrome (“TDS”) and the simpleton reflexive narrative of the Left: “Orange Man Bad.”

Powell went on to explain that his reasons for criticizing President Trump originated long ago with questions surrounding Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.’s constitutional eligibility.  Powell told Tapper: “The first thing that troubled me is the whole birther movement. The birther movement had to do with the fact that the President of the United States, President Obama, was a black man. That was part of it.”  That comment, coming at the beginning of his remarks, caught your faithful servant’s attention and prompts this offering.

Where to start…, where to start?

First, Powell conveniently forgets the fact that, while candidate Donald Trump did, in fact, raise questions surrounding Obama’s eligibility, the origin of the issue, at least from politicians, was Bill (“it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-‘is’-is”) Clinton.  As discussed here, back in 2008, well prior to Donald Trump’s candidacy and before the election when the voters were bamboozled into elevating Obama to the position of “Second Usurper-in-Chief” of the United States, Bill Clinton was questioning his constitutional bona fides. 

Powell also improperly conflates the issue of examining Obama’s constitutional eligibility with a not-so-subtle suggestion that those who would question Obama’s eligibility are racists.  Dumb.  And coming from a four-star general “of color” who rose through the ranks of a fundamentally “white” military hierarchy, the suggestion is not only ironically hypocritical, it comes close to being itself racist.  The issue of a person’s constitutional eligibility as a “natural born Citizen” is color-blind, as Powell should know from reading his own “13 Rules of Leadership.”  To contend that the questioning of Obama’s constitutional eligibility has anything at all to do with his racial background is nonsense, and supercilious nonsense at that.

Second, Powell acknowledges – as he must – that we have a Constitution, but claims that President Trump has “drifted away from it.”  Memo to Powell: what, exactly, has President Trump done to “drift away” from the Constitution?  And while you are at it trying to identify concrete examples of that “drift,” please identify why the purported “black man [sic]” you reference has failed, resisted and refused to address the empirical fact that he is very likely not a “natural born Citizen” as required by Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5 of the Constitution and as intended by the Founders.

Powell, like so many other wannabe-pundits, seemingly thinks that the assemblage of random words into sentences alone, particularly in times of tumult and danger, automatically translates into truth or rational thought.  That is neither the definition of truth nor rational thought.  That is usually the definition of propaganda or misinformation.  They chant is unison: “Orange Man Bad.”

Before Powell and other denizens of the Deep State regurgitate, once again, the shibboleth that those challenging the eligibility of Obama were and remain uninformed “birthers” to be marginalized and lampooned, they need to sober up.  They need to come to grips with their own “Obamaphile Fantasy” that the posting to the Internet of a picture of a document, rather than producing the document itself, suffices to confirm the constitutional eligibility of the person entrusted with the nation’s launch codes in the “nuclear football.”

As noted here, regardless of whether Obama was born in Honolulu, Mombasa or Djakarta – all places rumored to be where he entered the world – because his father was not a U.S. citizen when he was born – and even assuming his birth took place, as he claims, in Honolulu – he was not, is not and will not in the future be a “natural born Citizen” under the Constitution as contemplated by the Founders.

Rest assured, faithful P&E readers, that if Joe (“C’mon-man-[sic]-I-heard-you-liked-me”) Biden is elected president, the likelihood of the question ever again being addressed will plunge to zero, if not lower…, unless and until, of course, a Republican who does not meet the eligibility criteria determines to run for the office.

Then, as happened with Senator Ted Cruz, CNN, MSNBC and the Gray Trollop will dust off their old screeds and launch them in the Republican’s direction.  Once again: if hypocrisy did not already exist, a liberal would invent it at breakfast if only to survive until lunch.

With all due respect to General Powell’s military career and stint as Secretary of State under George W. Bush, he is flat wrong to deploy the “birther” pejorative – such a “hurtful” word, for those snowflakes (if any) reading this post – and even flatter wrong to marginalize the eligibility issue.  Moreover, his expressed intention to vote for Joe Biden – as opposed to just sitting on the sidelines – tells you all you need to know about the depth of his animus toward President Trump.

Vote carefully in November.