Thursday, May 24, 2012

Grow Up, Mitt

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has some advice for Mitt Romney:

I think he really needs to not just accept these cataclysmic sort of pronouncements. I think he really needs to think carefully about these statements because they’re now on the wall for people to see. … Let’s not go creating enemies where none yet exist. Does this mean that we should trust Putin or Medvedev? No. Let’s be mature people and look at the reality of the situation and not find ways to see if we can hyperbolize the situation.

That was in light of Mr. Romney labeling Russia as our “geopolitical foe”. (Sheesh. What’s next, telling us not to be brainwashed about winning in Vietnam?)

Gen. Powell is also in favor of marriage equality:

Gen. Colin Powell said Wednesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” that he supports legal same-sex marriage, either at the state or federal level.

“I have no problem with it,” he said in the interview […]. “In terms of the legal matter of creating a contract between two people that’s called marriage, and allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country. And so I support the president’s decision.”

Back in 2000, Gen. Powell’s name was being bandied about as a possible GOP presidential candidate to the point that he actually seemed to consider it. For whatever reason (including concerns in his family about his safety), he did not run. But if he had, I have a feeling he could have changed the direction of the party (and avoided that whole UN debacle with the WMD crap that sucked the life out of his credibility) and we’d be looking at a very different — and far more effective — Republican Party today. But they didn’t grow up then, and they sure don’t show any signs of doing so now.