JACOBY ON POWELL - AT 8:53 P.M. ET:  Jeff Jacoby, the lone conservative columnist on the financially ailing Boston Globe, eloquently takes on Colin Powell, who has been giving a heap of advice to Republicans recently.  Jacoby clearly does not think much of the advice:

Powell's antipathy to the GOP's Reaganite roots has gone beyond the point of reason and reflection. What kind of Republican, after all, preaches that Americans "do want to pay taxes for services" and "are looking for more government in their life, not less"? (The opposite is true: In a nationwide poll last month, 62 percent of respondents said they prefer a government that offers fewer services and lower taxes; only 28 percent preferred more services and higher taxes.) What kind of Republican calls John McCain "my beloved friend" and acknowledges that he "would be a good president" -- then turns around and endorses the most liberal Democrat ever nominated for president?

COMMENT:  About time someone said it, and Jacoby says it very well.  Powell's military service was apparently admirable, but his civilian service has been less distinguished.  He was not an outstanding secretary of state.  Nor has Powell ever struck me as a particularly imaginative man. 

I recall, after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, that Powell referred to them as the "events of September 11th," as if they were athletic defeats.  I don't think he has ever visited Ground Zero in New York, even though New York is his home town.  He has about him an aloofness. 

Powell has benefited mightily from the affection of Republicans toward him.  He has never returned that affection.  I believe there is plenty of room in the Republican Party - indeed both parties - for a variety of views.  A party, if it is successful, must be a coalition.  And no one is throwing Powell out.  But he seems detached from, even hostile to, the basic beliefs of the GOP, those fundamental principles that go on decade after decade.  One suspects that he no longer, privately, considers himself a Republican.

May 13, 2009