Why Colin Powell's Endorsement Doesn't Matter

The NBC News Today Show on Sunday made a big deal over Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama. The interview was played over and over on cable network news programs for most of the day.

But the Colin Powell endorsement of Obama doesn't matter. In fact, very few things in this campaign could be of lesser importance.

Everyone knew the endorsement was coming. Obama is a Powell kind of guy, although Powell has served in at least 3 Republican administrations.

Powell has never been a conservative Republican in the Ronald Reagan tradition. In fact, he has been vocally uncomfortable with the now-famous 'Reagan Coalition' of religious conservatives. blue collar Democrats, conservative and libertarian Republicans, and traditional Republicans.

Once during his years with the administration of Bush the First, Powell was described as making fun of some of the Christian evangelical conservatives Reagan had brought on board to form the coalition.

He stated, 'Can you imagine ME fitting in with these people?'

Well, General, no, I can't. You never have, and you never will.

Powell likes the Obama 'mystique.' A black man who is articulate, well-groomed, and attractive....one who has no discernible guiding compass of core values other than doing and saying whatever is necessary to win, and hiding his true views on a variety of issues so that he can ascend to a position of power.

This is precisely what Powell has done his entire career except in those rare moments when he slipped and let close friends and associates know where he stands.

This time, however, he let Tom Brokaw at NBC News know exactly where he stands--on Sarah Palin. He doesn't like her.

Is that surprising? Not to me. She is everything Powell detests--a Christian conservative, a small government conservative, an outsider to Washington, and a woman courageous enough to take on the entrenched, establishment bigwigs in her own Party in Alaska.

Powell has always aligned himself, although stealthily, with that part of the Republican Party that is 'eastern establishment'--socially liberal, fiscally moderate, and generally supportive of big government programs.

It is no wonder that Palin rubs Powell the wrong way. He is the type of guy Palin would have no trouble going after with a vengeance for his lack of core conservative principles.

And, in spite of his admitted admiration for John McCain, including a long, 30-year friendship, Powell obviously has shown the country where he places his allegiance--not to long friendships, not to country, not to principle, but to the type of 'change' represented by a European-styled Socialist who was once a member of the Communist Party.