The Powell Endorsement

So, according to this report at The New York Times, Colin Powell - shown in the screen shot above lying to the U.N. about Saddam Hussein's non-existent WMD program - has endorsed Obama for president. Last time around I was clear about what Obama ought to do in the event this happened. And I have been clear too about Powell and his putative record for being honest, independent, 'honorable' public servant, defender of democracy, and all that (See [1], [2], etc.). I stand by my advice to the Obama campaign. They should repudiate Powell's endorsement. But wait, one of the other page one stories at The Times today is about the small question of whether the administration has been "dissembling" over recent events in Benghazi. Maybe the folks in the administration can learn from Powell? Maybe they already have. After all, it is inconceivable that this sort of endorsement is non-orchestrated. Powell has been saved for the end, to punctuate Obama's victorious run for a second term. How convenient that Powell also now can distract attention from the administration's own foreign policy misstatements.

Obama Should Repudiate Any Powell Endorsement

There seems to be significant amount of buzz surrounding the possibility that Colin Powell may endorse Barack Obama this weekend. Before getting all worked up, Democrats should recall at least two things. First, not only did Powell lie repeatedly in the course of the BushCo propaganda campaign that led up the Iraq invasion in 2003 but, his command performance at the U.N. arguably was the clincher for the invasion, which was initiated roughly a week later. Second, Powell was among the group of top level BushCo officials who met in the White House Situation Room and approved plans to torture specific detainees in particular ways.

Over at Huff Post the comment threads on stories about Powell's anticipated endorsement are full of folks declaring that Powell is "honorable" and that the anti-war crown ought to 'get over it' now that some time has passed.* This is a pretty astounding lack of self-reflection on the part of people who support Obama as a progressive purveyor of change and hope. (I actually do not subscribe to that view, although he is better than McCain.) I'd love to hear how honor squares with duplicity and inhumanity.

Powell is way too smart and had way too many contacts in the military and intelligence communities to actually believe what he peddled in the run-up to the invasion. (at a minimum he had to have understood that the "intelligence" was contested and that the BushCo line was mostly spin.) And he simply ought to have resigned and spoken out forthrightly about the policy of torture. It is that simple. All the talk about honor and integrity amounts to nothing in the face of the record. If Obama takes on a Powell endorsement, he unnecessarily takes on the burden of an unjustified war - one that he prides himself on having opposed at the outset.
___________
* For example:

"Powell is the only person to come out of the Bush Administration with high favorability ratings. Only some remnants of the anti war movement still stuck in 2003 care about that much about his UN speech. Iraq was a Bush Cheney Rumsfeld policy. I and most people consider him an honorable man. This is a definite plus for Obama."

"Powell is not tarnished in anyone's eyes except extreme partisans. If he was running for president, he'd win in a landslide."

Suspend Belief

There is an Op-Ed by Errol Morris in The New York Times today addressing the recent "controversy" over these pictures of Iranian missiles. See reports on the journalistic dust-up here. Are there really three or are there really four? And what difference does it make? Here is the punchline:

"I have asked myself how this controversy over a photograph became international news. Clearly, there are many reasons. But at the center of them all is this question: Are we on the brink of another war? I remind myself that the war in Iraq started with bellicose posturing and photographs. At the United Nations, Colin Powell displayed several photographs of Iraqi sites showing incontrovertible evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Of course, we now know that this incontrovertible visual evidence was false. We don’t need advanced digital tools to mislead, to misdirect or to confuse. All we need is a willingness to uncritically believe."

The point is to not be credulous, to ask - as several remarks in my sidebar remind us to do - who is using this photograph and for what purpose? The answers may not always be immediately apparent. But it usually is possible to discern the liars and bullshitters if we can suspend belief for just a short while.

Two Black Men, Two Honorary Degrees ~ Or, How Universities Compromise Their Principles (2)

"I think everyone recognizes that Colin Powell has had a remarkable,
really extraordinary career of service to the country for more
than four decades in Vietnam, from the White House, to the
State Department. The honorary degree today recognizes that
career of public service."
~ Larry Arbeiter, University of Rochester

“Commencement at Northwestern is a time of celebration of the accomplishments of Northwestern’s graduating students and their
families. In light of the controversy around Dr. Wright and to ensure that the celebratory character of commencement not be affected, the university has withdrawn its invitation to Dr. Wright.”
~ Alan Cubbage, Northwestern University*

I have no particular commitment to Jeremiah Wright, to his church, nor, really, to Barack Obama, the member of his church who has caused Wright so much grief lately. But I saw Wright on Bill Moyers the other evening and he seemed like a lucid, reasonable man. I did not agree with everything he said. Nor was I offended by anything he said. Indeed, I have not been offended by any of the things he has said in the various clips or sound bites the media have been pre-occupied with lately. Yesterday, Obama insisted that much of what Wright recently has said, or been accused of saying, would "rightly offend all Americans." Obama is wrong. He needs some spine on this. You can disagree with someone without taking "offense" at what they think or say. The only folks who seemingly cannot do so are ideologues, mostly of the right. And, of course, political candidates afraid to take an independent stand in the face of media manipulation.

Well, Northwestern University has rescinded an offer to award an Honorary Degree to Jeremiah Wright. They are doing so, according to the University, not because of the content of his views but because of the anticipated controversy that his presence at commence would create. In other words what the NU administraiton is worried about is the media frenzy, the possible bad appearances and not the substance of what Wright says or whether what he says accurately captures reality. In the meantime the Northwestern University Law School has invited Jerry Springer to be its primary commencement speaker this year. I will not comment on that. Instead I will point out that the controversy here has to do solely with things Wright has said, or allegedly said. Moreover, it revolves around things that he has said (or allegedly said) as a private citizen. The President at Norhtwesern and his staff, like Obama, need some spine.

A comparison might help here. Last fall my own employer, The University of Rochester, granted an honorary degree to Colin Powell [*]. Talk about a man who has not just said but done truly offensive things! As a public official he lied repeatedly about the grounds we allegedly had for invading Iraq.** As a direct result, perhaps a hundred of thousand or more men and women and children have died. Jeremiah Wright, to the best of my knowledge, has never said anything that resulted in people dying. And of course the more recent news is that Powell was among the group of high-ranking administration officials who sat around designing the "harsh interrogation" of prisoners by American military and intelligence personnel.*** Powell, of course, did not himself directly torture anyone. Neither did he have the integrity to resign or to forthrightly and publicly condemn the conversations in which Condi and Don and Dick, et. al. decided how to torture specific individuals. His behavior was and is morally repugnant and, more importantly for current purposes, clearly complicit in the violation of U.S. and International Law. Of course, there is little or no controversy surrounding Colin Powell. So, the fact that as part of his official duties Powell actively took part in activities that are egregious and abhorrent should not be troublesome at all. Since there was no controversy, granting him an honorary degree did not interfere with the "celebratory character" of our alumni events last fall.

The point of the comparison is really quite simple. We ought to look at what people do and the consequences of what they do. We should be less reactionary, try to keep our "offense" in check, and at least try to listen to the views of those with whom we disagree. That is not easy. We should worry less about "controversy" and more about substance. And we should not honor those who have participated in the abhorrent. Neither the administration at NU nor that at UofR, albeit in different ways, seem to have mastered these lessons.
__________
* Full disclosure: My first faculty position (1989-91) was at Northwestern.
** As documented by the Center for Public Integrity, find links here.
*** Find links here and here.

How a University Compromises Its Principles ~ Not Quite Totally

"Guernica," Pablo Picasso (1937)

About two weeks ago I heard Debra Satz, a friend who teaches philosophy at Stanford, on npr. She was interviewed as part of this report on faculty and student opposition to having former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appointed as a "distinguished fellow" at the Hoover Institution which is located on the Stanford Campus. I admire Debra's work ~ especially her series of extremely smart papers on markets and equality* ~ and her politics. It seems to me that faculty ought to speak out when their University seeks to appoint someone like Rumsfeld, who arguably is a war criminal, to some position or other.

Of course, Stanford has no real control over the folks at Hoover, which is a quasi-autonmous entity. But, I have to agree with the folks there who object to Rummy's appointment. Unlike BushCo minions like John Yoo ~ he of the infamous 'torture memos' ~ who now teaches law at Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley), Rumsfeld was not just a mouthpiece for putrid policies. He was directly in the chain of command. I would object to having Yoo on faculty where I teach but fortunately we have no law school! This is not "left-wing intolerance" as Conservatives (or Liberals who are free speech fundamentalists) are wont to proclaim; it is simply talking back to those who have said things in public that are both dangerous and stupid.** It is an attempt to hold Universities to their own principles. Would I urge the administration at Rochester to deny Yoo an academic appointment? No, but I likely would make clear that I find his rationalizations for torture contemptible. Would I ask the administration at UofR to deny Rumsfeld an appointment? Yes, just as I would in the case of other war criminals like, say, Henry Kissinger. Yoo rationalized torture in his speeches/writings, Rumsfeld actually implemented various dispicable policies.

All of that brings me round to the good old University of Rochester. This past weekend was "Meliora Weekend," part of the PR/Development campaign by which the University seeks to cultivate relations, both intellectual and economic, with alumnae and alumni. Nothing wrong with that. But the Keynote event on campus was an address by none other than former Secretary of State Colin Powell, he of the deceptive BushCo campaign to justify our invasion of Iraq.


This official-style head shot is how the University PR materials depict Powell. That makes sense since, according to the University, Powell is a "fervent purveyor of democratic values." This, unfortunately, seems to me to be considerably more than a stretch. Powell is a liar. In his 2003 testimony before the United Nations Security Council, Powell lied with a straight face about the alleged WMD in Iraq. He did not "mislead" or "dissemble." There is no need to sugar-coat the testimony he offered. He lied. He lied to you and me and the world. And he has admitted as much himself. It is deeply embarassing that the UofR invited Powell to speak on campus. Accordng to the University, while in office Powell "used the power of diplomacy and the universal ideal of democracy to" among other things "build trust"; it escapes me completely how lying to the American people, and to our allies and adversaries, enhances trust either domestically or internationally. Quite the contrary. And to the extent that our premise is that healthy democracy presupposes a reservoir of political trust, Powell seems to me an enemy of democracy.

Here is a far more appropriate photograph of Powell. It is a still taken from the video of his perfomance at the U.N. in the winter of 2003. This is the defining moment of Powell's career in public service. Here he is peddling lies. He is peddling lies that it seems quite disingenuous to suggest he did not know were lies at the time. Why didn't this image appear on our Meliora Weekend web page?

Call me an "absent-minded Professor." I do not pay much attention to Meliora-like events. The only evidence I had that there was a special event on campus last Friday was my inability to find a place to park. So I didn't even know Powell was on the schedule. I didn't know there was a schedule. Had I known I would've objected in advance. As it is, I am objecting now. I'm sure there will be those who chastise me, claiming that Powell has a right to speak. That, of course, is true. But let's be quite clear about what has happened. As part of the Meliora events we didn't just offer Powell an audience; we granted him an honorary degree. That is simply pathetic. It tarnishes the reputation of the University ~ to put it very mildly ~ to lend its name to the "achievements" of an admitted liar. Allowing someone to speak is one thing. Honoring him and his ignominious achievements is another.

I started this post with a reproduction of Picasso's Guernica because it bears witness to the evils of unjust and duplicitous regimes and the consequnces their policies generate. It also is relevant to Powell's defining moment, because the copy of this work that hangs at the U.N. Headquarters in NYC appropriately was covered over during Powell's testimony. Picasso's is a work of testimony. And ironically enough another of the speakers invited to address our alums this past weekend was Barbara Olshansky (BA, Rochester ’82; JD, Stanford '85 ~ how is that for a coincidence?) who, as the Deputy Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, successfully fought the Bush administration's ongoing efforts to shred the Constitution in the name of this or that ill-conceived and deceitful policy. Olshansky now is on the faculty of Stanford Law School and is Litigation Director for the International Justice Network. She is a truly distinguished alumnus.

As far as I know the UofR bestowed no honorary degree on Olshansky; she simply was offered an audience to whom she could provide a report on her honorable work trying to counteract the lies and actions of those like Colin Powell. So our compromise, I suppose, was not total.
__________
* You can find a draft of one of these papers here.
** Steve Holmes dismantles Yoo's views (pardon the rhyme) in this essay in The Nation.