Powell Won't Abandon ObamaAugust 29, 2011
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RUSH: By the way, Colin Powell was on Slay the Nation yesterday, said that he's not sure that he would vote for Obama again in 2012. Now, folks, that has to set off some warning bells out there in the Democrat Party. If the titular head of the Republican Party, Colin Powell -- and remember, we were told back in 2008 that the ideal Republican is Colin Powell. If you need a model of who the ideal Republican is, that's who it is, General Powell, a guy endorsing the Democrat candidate, Barack Obama.
But now General Powell is also upset at Dick Cheney for taking cheap shots at him in his book who, by the way, Dick Cheney will be here on this program tomorrow to talk about his new book. With General Powell saying that he's not quite sure that he would vote for Obama, that's gotta set off some warning bells in the Democrat Party, because as I say, if the titular head of the Republican Party is starting to have doubts about your candidate, you know that you are in trouble. Snerdley, you know I'm right here. In the end, Powell will vote for Obama. There's no doubt. The titular head of the Republican Party, the ideal model Republican will vote for Obama. Melanin is thicker than water, folks. That's what will happen.
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RUSH: I said Colin Powell earlier was unsure, he was on Slay the Nation yesterday. Bob Schieffer said, "Let's talk a little bit about this book that Dick Cheney himself said is gonna cause heads all over Washington to explode. I guess I'd ask you, General Powell, is your head exploding?"
POWELL: My head isn't exploding and I haven't noticed any other head’s exploding in Washington, DC. And the explosive part of the book is when Mr. Cheney says its explosive but what I have read in the newspapers and seen on television, it's essentially a rehash of the events of seven or eight years ago. What really sort of got my attention was this way in which he characterized it, "It's going to cause heads to explode." That's quite a visual and in fact, the kind of headline I would expect to come out of a gossip columnist, or the kind of headline you might see one of the supermarket tabloids write. It’s not the kind of headline I would have expected to come from a former Vice President of the United States of America.
RUSH: Oh, wow! So we're getting now down to the nub of it here, General Powell not a big fan of Vice President Cheney. And we know why. We know why. By the way, Vice President Cheney is on this program tomorrow. We got him at one o'clock, right? One o'clock Eastern time, Vice President Cheney here. Well, he'll be on the phone. But part of this, you gotta go back when Powell ran the State Department, Richard Armitage leaked the name Valerie Plame, and Scooter Libby, a trusted aide of Dick Cheney, had to take the fall for this. And of course General Powell has never gotten over the fact that the Bush administration sent him up to the United Nations to do the slide show presentation on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. So General Powell, the former chairman of the chief joints of staff, says he's a little squeamish over heads exploding. He seems a little squeamish over it. Well, how about this petulant question from Schieffer, "Is your head exploding?" "My head's not exploding, I haven't seen anybody else's heads exploding in Washington, DC." So then Schieffer said, "So you just label all this stuff cheap shots?"
POWELL: They are cheap shots. He goes on to talk about the Valerie Plame affair and tries to lay it all off on Mr. Rich Armitage and the State Department and me. But the fact of the matter is when Mr. Armitage realized that he was the source for Bob Novak's column that caused all the difficulty and he called me immediately, he called the Justice Department, they sent over the FBI, the FBI had all the information about Mr. Armitage's participation in this immediately. If the White House operatives had come forward as readily as Mr. Armitage had done then we wouldn't have gone on for two more months with the FBI trying to find out what happened in the White House.
RUSH: Nothing happened in the White House. It all happened in the State Department. Armitage sat there and let Scooter Libby twist in the wind. Now, there may be some news here. If the FBI knew all along that Armitage had given it up, why didn't they tell Patrick Fitzgerald so that he would stop pursuing Rove or Libby or anybody else at the White House. That would be my pregunta. So I think I'm learning for the first time here from General Powell that Armitage, when he found out he was the source, called the Justice Department and laid it all out for 'em and somehow the Justice Department didn't tell their special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. Seems to be some bad blood here. We have a titular head of the Republican Party, Mr. Powell, going after the former vice president of the United States, Mr. Cheney. Why is the leader of the GOP, Mr. Powell, always involved in these kinds of things with these underlings? Schieffer said, "You voted for Barack Obama the last time out, even though you're Republican, gonna vote for him again?"
POWELL: I haven't decided who I'm gonna vote for. Just as was the case in 2008, I'm gonna watch the campaign unfold.
RUSH: Oh.
POWELL: In the course of my life I have voted for Democrats, I have voted for Republicans, I have changed from one four-year cycle to another, and I've always felt that it was my responsibility as a citizen to take a look at issues, to examine the candidates and pick the person that I think is best qualified for the office of the president in that year and not just solely on the basis of party affiliation.
RUSH: Right. Right, right, right, right. So he wants to stand by that as the reason he voted for Obama. He examined the issues. He examined the candidates. He picked the person best qualified for the office? Ha-ha. How did it work out for you, general, last time? I'm sorry. I just don't buy that as the rationale for his vote, which I so stated. I got in a little trouble. I said, "Look, we all know why Powell voted for Obama." Racially based vote. All hell broke loose.
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