Powell Chief Of Staff: I Expected Klan Wizard To Endorse McCain

Foreign Policy:

Lifelong Republican Colin Powell surprised the audience of NBC's Meet the Press this weekend with his endorsement of Barack Obama for president, calling the Illinois senator a "transformational figure" who could be an "exceptional president." Citing a litany of complaints about John McCain's campaign style and his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate, Powell said the Republican nominee "didn't have a complete grasp" of the economic crisis facing the United States and was focusing instead on "issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about."

Commentators have since rushed to ask what impact Powell's words will have on the U.S. election, now just two weeks away. Foreign Policy's Elizabeth Dickinson looked to one of Colin Powell's closest confidants, Lawrence Wilkerson, for answers. ...

FP: What's your take on the tone of the campaign?

LW: I was fully expecting the grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan to arrive from Maryland and endorse McCain. I was becoming frightened that we were returning to 1968, when they assassinated Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Those were bad times.

Read the whole story: Foreign Policy

Comments

[brief candle]

They sent Dobson instead.

[marymansour]

Thank you, Mr. Wilkerson, for having the courage to make this statement. Others have skirted around this issue, not daring to compare McCain and Palin to that organization which brutalized black people in the South and other backward areas. You have finally nailed it.