You Save Us, We Redeem You

At a Sunday night live broadcast of KCRW's "Left, Right and Center" an audience member asked the panel (Tony Blankley, Bob Scheer, Matt Miller and Arianna Huffington) what role they thought Colin Powell should play in the new Obama Administration. Surprisingly, three of the panelists, including the Proprietress, allowed themselves to say that Powell had not paid sufficient penance, shown sufficient remorse, for his role in paving the way to the Iraq War. Blankley, expressing surprise at the near-unanimous disdain, suggested Powell for Secretary of Education, an interesting choice considering that conservatives used to advocate shutting down that department.

Me, I've long foreseen a more useful role for the tainted patron saint of failed wars. A couple years ago, when New Orleans was pondering its inability to motivate the political class to take seriously the city's dual needs--a full investigation of the design and construction flaws (and other problems) that led to the Katrina-related flooding, and a comprehensive program of flood protection and wetlands restoration to prevent a recurrence--I thought Colin Powell would be the perfect replacement for the then-incumbent Gulf Recovery Czar. Surely you remember the Czar. (Hint: Donald Powell, no relation) The pairing of a wounded city seeking national empathy and a fallen hero seeking redemption seemed to me sort of perfect.

It still does. The city, still wounded, hopes not to fall below Rwanda on the nation's to-do list, and General Powell, still tainted, could use a cause bigger than just making us forget photos of mobile bioweapons vans. Sunday's Times-Picayune reminds us that Bush's Gulf recovery office goes out of business in February, and it reminds us why that office was so ineffectual:

(It) was hamstrung, the two officials said, because the president didn't give it the authority to command or overrule recalcitrant federal agencies.

"The most important thing, whether you keep the office going or appoint a coordinator, is to have the president let it be known that the person is speaking for him and has the authority to get things done," said one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In other words, do what President Bush promised in Jackson Square that he would do. General Powell would carry that authority among a bureaucracy possibly not burdened with memories of certain UN appearances. President-elect Obama could do both New Orleans and Powell a favor.

PS: For commenters crass enough to suggest that New Orleans deserves inattention because Dollar Bill Jefferson might still be re-elected, three words: Senator Ted Stevens.

Comments

[ploopy]

along these lines, i say let "the maverick" reformer... (frenemy john mc same) be allowed a stab at reforming the pentagon... mc cain for dept of defense!!! see how that works, make him work out. ha ha ha xoxoxoxo

[maxfax]

Is this a possibility? Is anyone recommending him to the Obama campaign?

BTW does anyone know what the city is not spending money on rebuilding the city? They have enough of it.

[denlong]

OK. . . maybe the guy is a compitant administrator.
But how can Mr "We KNOW they have WMD's" ever have ANY credibility?

[Kcecelia]

Thank you for responding.

It is good to know I was not alone in my astonishment at the completely amnesiac and enthusiastic accolades Powell received. It began to feel mean and small to be so rude as to take notice of the whole mendacious warmongering episode.

The critical stentorian voices demanding penance from President Clinton for his perceived sins pre, during, and post this election---we are very, very hard on this flawed and brilliant man---provide an interesting counterpoint to the rush to warmth uncomplicated by past reality for Powell. We seem as a nation to have an enthusiastic hierarchical prejudice toward the villification of people whose sins are sensual rather than martial.

As sonshine so eloquently put it in a reaction to your article, we are currently challenged in all sorts of complex ways, and for all sorts of reasons, to begin "to get back to Smart from years and years of Dumb."

[TomBrentwood]

I think Powell would be perfect for FEMA.

As for Homeland Security I would abolish it and just make the CIA and the FBI meet every day
with the President. Homeland Security is just more government musical chairs chewing up money
faster then we print it.
By the way anybody read the latest book on the NSA? I hope Obama has a copy of that on his desk.
Saw the interview with the author on C-Span and it was the best interview I have ever seen on our
Intelligence failures in the last 8 years...

[littlepitcher]

Colin Powell could impose some discipline on the disorganized efforts to clean and rebuild the Gulf Coast. If any Federal make-work projects are to be organized, a rebuild in that region would put unemployed American construction workers back in production, and revitalize (maybe) declining building-materials markets, IF they don't resort to the nationwide price-gouging we've seen post-Charleston and Florida hurricanes, as well as post-Katrina.
And all of those empty foreclosures might well be cleared from the books via a home-loan program for now-employed Katrina and Galveston refugees.
Give the job to a different kind of brown man!

[Bitsko]

The government did next to nothing in the Gulf after Katrina to prove that the government could do nothing.

[luziannagirl]

Rwanda? Oh, I think Rwanda is way ahead of New Orleans on the current national priority list.

To the current administration, keeping their promise to rebuild N.O. about as likely as fixing Haiti. Or putting a permanent manned colony on the moon. Wait, no, Mars.

Then, following those accomplishments would be the rebuilding of New Orleans.

And, yeah, I think New Orleans and General Powell are a good match, too.

Whether he's up to the task or not is another question. New Orleans' complex political climate has done in more than one big dog.

[razajac]

Reading this reminds me of an old Michigan rep, Bob Barr. At a gathering to discuss the Carter-era threats to kickstart the draft, he said (paraphrased, not verbatim, sorry), "Government's biggest failures always come down to a lack of imagination."

Harry's suggestion is blindingly creative. Not only would it be a "real job" for Powell, but it appeases those who still smart from Powell's UN sellout by appearing to be a stint of "community service."

We need more genuinely creative people in gov't. Hear that, Minnesota?

[timothea]

I was the person who asked the question about Colin Powell at the LR&C evening on the 9th.
Thanks for answering my question. Tainted or not Colin Powell, Colin Powell is a valuable person to utilize in an Obama administration. Let him redeem himself through his next action of service. Also, I thought he gave perhaps the best endorsement on Meet the Press of Obama that I heard throughout the campaign. It was thorough, practical, non political and seemed to come from a place deep inside him.

I am for redemption through good works. I hope President-elect Obama uses Colin Powell and think he will --------with New Orleans or elsewhere.

[sonshine]

Let's not argue about who had more damage. New Orleans is a symbol of how our government failed to take care of it's own, like it or not. I think that putting Colin Powell in charge of the rebuilding of New Orleans and other similarly affected areas of our nation is an excellent idea.

[bleau-in-red]

Hel-lo...regarding the comment that LA had far more damage than MS..I suggest you come and visit Waveland, MS, my town. 90% of the town..houses, businesses, schools, churches, municipal buildings..GONE. The town next door, Bay St Louis...approximately 70% destroyed. Three years later, we are still struggling to rebuild it all...and doing it without the publicity that is eternally New Orleans. If there is to be such a Czar, he will serve ALL states, not just New Orleans, and LA.

[andvoodoo2]

I made the comment and I stand by it.

BTW, I used to live in Gulfport and have many friends still on the coast.

However, 80% of the homes in the city of New Orleans were under water. NOLA is part of a metropolitan area that housed more than a million people. We lost OUR "houses, businesses, schools, churches, municipal buildings" too. And, like it or not, NOLA was home to more people than ALL of the coast you reference and had MORE damage and MS got more money than LA did.

[HoppinHill]

Residents of MS got far more money per capita than LA. MS got so much money that I personally know some homeowners who - after receiving their first chunk of money from the feds - got two more subsequent phone calls from the feds offering them more money! Normally I don't repeat stories without a source, but this story is common household knowledge.

[Kcecelia]

In your article you say,

"Surprisingly, three of the panelists, including the Proprietress, allowed themselves to say that Powell had not paid sufficient penance, shown sufficient remorse, for his role in paving the way to the Iraq War."

Why is this surprising? What surprised me was the waves of adulation that met Powell's endorsement of Obama. It actually confused me for a time and I remember blearily asking a friend if Powell had indeed lied to us all in an attempt to move us into the Iraq war. The answer, of course, was Yes, yes, he did do that. And, while it may be unfair, I think Powell deserves extra responsiblity for our benighted entry into Iraq because he was viewed by so many as having such integrity that if he said there were WMDs, then maybe there really were WMDs. Having him speak piled cynicism onto lies in a Rovian/Cheneysesque maneuver. I have enormous sympathy for the pain his unholy alliance caused and is causing Powell, but I think he needs to take responsibility for his actions beyond pretending it did not happen and realigning himself with a more ethical group.

As to your suggestion? I think it is a good idea. Powell should put in some community service time to prove he is no longer under the sway of the unsavory lame-duck regime currently happily scissoring yet more of our constitution into shreds, destroying our environment, and taking pot shots at women's rights.

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

Surprising, because I too was stunned by the unanimity of amnesia that followed Powell's Meet the Press appearance.

[sonshine]

We are all now being retrained to study and to remember history. Blogs like yours help that effort. We have to get back to Smart from year and years of Dumb.

[Bitsko]

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."

--H. L. Mencken

[504crank]

Three out of four voters pulled the lever for someone other than Dollar Bill in the LA-02 Democratic primary election.

http://peoplegetready.jockamofeenanay.com/?p=2531

[Durango]

I was hoping that the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party had just been elected.

We don't need ANY recycled Neo-Cons anywhere in the government.

Have people already forgotten that Powell's address to the UN included a salt shaker he claimed to be anthrax and cartoons about nonexistant mobile weapons labs?

Oh, lets not forget the model airplanes Saddam was threatening the USA with.

And it was not just the bogus claims about the WMD's. He also claimed Saddam was going to turn over those weapons to al Qaida.

Something that anyone, ANYONE, who knew ANYTHING about the Middle east could tell was bogus.

Laughable.

The perpetrator of the biggest fraud in American history has no business being anywhere near this new government.

[sonshine]

Do you know what he's been doing since his royal f-up? Good stuff for the community. It isn't like Shearer is just pulling this out of the air. There's a track record. Powell has a serious committment to community service and we should encourage that. Let's not lose focus on the goal: improvement of our great nation using the best minds available.

[bigkay]

The idolatry of Gen. Powell is beyond my comprehension, he lied people died!