Agreed - that presentation is quite easily the lowest point in
his career, both political and military. Then again, it is
mitigated by the fact that he was surrounded by hawks (namely Rice,
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) and given his marching orders by Bush, and
it was pretty clear he wasn't happy about having to do it. Sure, he
could have tendered his resignation, but 1) he would have lost all
opportunity to attempt to redeem the situation later and 2) being a
military man, it was unlikely that he was going to threaten unit
(i.e. White House) integrity at that crucial time.
In any case, Powell is no stranger to controversy - he had the
political savvy to not only survive My Lai but to rise to JCS.
Betting odds are that he'll get past this one eventually.
Condi Rice as SecState - that thought gives me the
heebie-jeebies.
And yeah, I've vote for Powell as president - he's the smartest of
the lot on both sides, and it's sure beats voting for either Dick
or Hilary.
