Toxic Gimcrackery?

Harriet Miers is going down in flames. Karl Rove and Scooter Libby are damaged goods. Dick Cheney is publicly revealed (again) to be a liar. And amid scandal after scandal, and in the face of a disastrous war, it seems now that even the Republicans have had enough of Bush.

The list of Republican critics of the war, the torture policy, the deficit, and of the Miers nomination grows every day. One wonders when the once-respected voice of Colin Powell will join the public discussion -- to openly and honestly assess our current course and its consequences. It is hard to believe we once thought this man could be President.

Michael Tomasky, writing in the American Prospect, has this to say (excerpt):

The same day that Wilkerson was blasting away at the administration in Washington, far away in upstate New York, the man whose staff Wilkerson chiefed, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, was delivering a speech on the current world situation to a gathering at the University of Buffalo. Surveying the landscape from Europe to China to the rest of Asia, Powell concluded: “We’re not doing bad at all.”

Has anyone in this town embarrassed himself in the last five years more than Powell? At least George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld believe this toxic gimcrackery they’ve been peddling to us. Powell never believed it, and he still peddled it.

There’s a word for that, and it isn’t “honor.”

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