Jennifer Rubin does a nice take-down here of the increasingly despicable Colin Powell, who smeared his former party on Meet the Press by accusing Republicans of a “dark vein of intolerance.” Thus says the first black Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, the first black Secretary of State, the sometime mentor of the first black woman to serve as Secretary of State… all under Republican sponsorship. 

Thus says the back-stabbing lout who deliberately let the innocent Scooter Libby twist in the wind, and then get convicted, when one word from Powell would have ended the investigation. Thus says the man who was afforded credit he didn’t deserve for conduct of a Gulf War (1991) he more or less opposed, the man who denounced his own testimony to the United Nations while blaming others for its substance, the man who claimed to be a Republican moderate but who endorsed the most radical leftist Democrat ever to serve in the presidency over a Republican moderate (John McCain) who had repeatedly befriended him and praised him throughout his career.

Marco Rubio was right to push back against this man of little character. Two Hispanic senators who are Republicans, none Democrat? Check. Two Latino governors who are Republicans? Check. A Republican as the only black senator? Yes. Two Indian (Asian) governors? Republican. The only senator in recent memory with real American Indian blood (at least partially) in his veins? Republican. Legions of party activists first inspired into politics by the inclusive, open, sunny Jack Kemp? Yes. The party’s most recent vice presidential nominee? An actual former top aide to Kemp.

Powell has become nothing other than a nasty apparatchik currying favor with those in power. Maybe that’s all he ever was.