PRUDEN: A long patrol with new pals

Colin Powell threw a sharp right into the face of every American military member with his endorsement of Senator Obama. He stuck right to the Obama talking points throughout so he must have been given the script before hand to study. Now we have Joe Biden on the same day telling the entire world that Obama will be Tested with an International Crisis within six months of taking office and that the decision reached on how to handle it will not be popular at home, but, that it will be right. So this means either that he will withdraw all forces from Iraq and let it go down in flames or he will attack in Pakistan leading to a larger war. Joe also spoke of he knows foreign policy better than all the Senators and Congressmen so he will handle the crisis better than anyone. This sends chills up and down my spine as it shows that Biden knows Obama will make the wrong decision and that Biden will back him up. I guess Colin Powell did not have time to listen to Joe Biden before he maked his announcement.

Thank you, Wes Pruden, for taking the spin off the leftist talking points. Each day I awaken, I wonder aloud what next will come from the most potentially devastating hit our country will suffer should Obama and his cohorts win Nov. 4. How is it possible, I ask myself, for the LEAST QUALIFIED and most SOCIALISTIC presidential candidate EVER to have won the Democrat Party's nomination? Is it possible that mush has replaced brains in nearly half of the American population? Old generals, so "they" say, never die; they just fade away. Were it only true for Powell. Instead, his political opportunism brings him to the fore once again, ignominiously so given his former political alignments and pronouncements in the name of patriotism and service to country. The mushy 45 percent of the country will fall for his illogical rhetoric. In the end, however, especially as the economy inches upward, I pray that the remainder will realize that only by electing McCain/Palin can we begin to rebuild our country and restore its legacy with fiscally conservative principles. This would mean the end of the big government era with its wasteful earmarks, programs, and foolhardy representatives. With Obama and Biden, we can count only on even more big government, taxes, waste, and, eventually, the complete collapse of independence and self-sufficiency. The NANNY STATE will at long last have arrived.

Thank you too, Mr. Pruden. I admire your writing skills. I too would like to express a situation at least half as well as you do. Like others, I find the general's timing and justification really amusing, but thinking about it all brought wonder about a few things. General Powell may be overwhelmed with pride in his race and is compelled to throw his support for a fellow minority. It is the American way and we all respect that. Then, I thought the unthinkable. Did the democrats encourage General Powell to step up now, at this particular time? Only the General knows these things and that's good enough for me. For sure, an endorsement for the democrat candidate is an endorsement for who that candidate is, with all of the baggage: Ayers, Wright, ACORN, no wordly experience and most surprising of all redistributing wealth. Is General Powell willing to take a cut in his monthly retirement pay to pass on to enlisted ranks retirees who need that money more than he does?

Gen. Powell is a liberal and has always been a liberal. His State Department was Madeline Albright's State Department and I suspect the same of Sect. Rice (who leans a bit too far to the left to suit me also). His argument for Obama makes little sense. I suspect Obama's race has more bearing on the endorsement than his qualifications. His comments about Gov. Palin are silly and saying that Joe Biden of all people is ready to be POTUS should be enough to qualify him for the home. Pitiful.

The only difference between Ayers and McVeigh was the size of the bomb. If General Powell wants to be concerned about something, he needs to focus his intelligence on a trend. The trend that Obama keeps distancing himself from, i.e. the likes of Wright, Farrakhan, Rezko, Ayers and ACORN. He definitely won't get it from the mainstream media, and that's why McCain is providing it, whether it concerns Powell or not. The mainstream media is providing everything personal available on Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber but really, what political value is it. Maybe it's like his bad intelligence on Iraq?

As usual, "soxconn" is right-on in their assessment. The general can make all of the excuses he wants, but anyone with half a brain knows that's all his arguments are.. excuses.

Is race a factor in this election? I do not believe that race (as seen from the white people I know) is a factor. There is a presumptive fear of being accused of having race as a factor. The weapon of choice of many within the Obama campaign has been yelling loud and hitting with the race stick. Pushing fear, will not get him elected in and by itself. The private nature of the ballot will speak for it self but I understand the nature of the excuse in advance if the ballot does not go in the direction or at minimum the majority Senator Obama's campaign would desire. Either way, he can claim race as the issue. Just because he himself stays outside this race debate and allows others to throw zingers does not mean he is not involved in pushing a any way to win campaign.

This is ALL about race, nothing else. 98% of blacks polled say they will vote for Obama. I would guess that fewer than 10% of them know what he stands for, or care. Powell said exactly what I expected him--or any other Democrat to say. Colin Powell is only slightly less liberal than Obama, but they are both DemocRATs. Bad for the country--they will try to ruin it like they always do.

Judgment and character are the byproducts of your upbringing and those who have shaped your character/ideolgy. Wright,Acorn,Pflleger,Rescoe, Ayers..great resume of asscociations and experience that have shaped this far left / most liberal Senator in Washington. ALL COMES DOWN TO JUDGMENT, CHARACTER AND EXPERIENCE. Obama a textbook mentality for America appointing Supreme Court judges who will slant re-interpret the Constitution to fit the far left liberal agenda. Stiffle the voice of those who do not support the liberal view of America. 1 MILLION ABORTIONS A YEAR FOR A START OBAMA MOST COMMITTED ABORTION RIGHTS CANDIDATE IN 35 YEARS!!!

The MSM's reluctance to question Obama's ties to the far left liberal "New Party" (Obama was a member) and its ties to ACORN as well as his affiliations with Ayres, Wright, Rezko, etc. is not only irresponsible, it is very dangerous and anti-American. The MSM is already in serious trouble and will have much to answer for when all this comes out. The backlash will not be pretty.

Had Hillary been the nomination, would Powell have backed her? I doubt it. Why not? Isn't her philosophy more in line with "The One"? He would not have backed her because she made many of the same arguments against the Messiah that McCain supposedly has done. This is all about race, plain and simple, case closed! As for the MSM, the only way they will wake up is if some sort of grass roots project effectively starts up, boycotting sponsors and the such. Until then, they will go along their merry way, injecting their own little personal biases, denying it all along, of course.

As usual spot-on. Thanks! Perhaps the General's 'Biden Readiness Conjecture' may have to be tested sooner than he thinks, if the allegations in the law suit turn out to be true: http://www.sonorannews.com/archives/2008/2008-10/081015/FrntPgObama.htm

I don't regret to inform you, Scott, that the real Mr. Pruden has the authority and stature to editorialize that you sorely lack. Continue to your heart's content to "deny" whatever suits your fancy.

Generals can be idiots too. I've stumbled across a few of them, and the history of warfare is full of them. Not that Gen. Powell is one of those, certainly not. But he is troubled by things. Not so much his candidates's associations with the blowing-up-America terroist Ayers, the gd-ing America Wright, the slumlord Rezko, the screw-the-voter group ACORN type things apparently. Not by a leader who would have zero crisis experience. Not by a leader who is the preferred choice of Chavez of Venezuela, the Castros of Cuba, and Hamas of Gaza, who must like the cut of his political jib. Not by a leader who some crudely characterize as a latte-sipping, arrogant elitist far-left-lib smarty pants slobbered over by that beacon of journalistic illumination the NY Times, aka the old gray fancy lady. Not by a leader --The Transformationalist-- who would sit unconditionally and magically transform the world's worst thugs and dictators into Einsteins of reason and enlightenment. Not by the Messianic one who is rolling in more dough than any candidate in the history of the world who would transform the poor and downtrodden by spreading the not-so-poor's wealth. Not by the would-be commander in chief who predicted with such stunning prescience that the surge, almost as brilliant a success as The One himself, would fail. That one. From all of that, the transforma- tionalist "distances" himself, laughs it off, says poo to all that. He trots onto the stage, flashes the teeth, claps his hands, commences his spiel, and blows the more skeptical skeptics and even hardnosed realists like old generals who should know better, away. We are transformed. The world is changed. God help us. Don't send Jesus. Please come yourself.

Powell is just doing what McCain says he supports, working across the isle. Anyone that has ever heard Powell speak on any subject knows he was not a wrong-wing republican. All of those that want to attribute his endorsement to something other than what he said, have fun. The endorsement was very well explained. I voted Obama/Biden.