Glenn Reynolds thinks that Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama is a case of “dog bites man.” I assume Reynolds is referring the opposite of the definition of news, rather than calling Gen. Powell a dog, but still I’m puzzled.
Like most retired military brass, Powell is a conservative. He’s also a lifelong Republican, a former Secretary of State in the Bush Administration, and someone widely mentioned as a Republican Presidential candidate in several previous election cycles. Powell has a long relationship with John McCain, and give him the $2300 maximum in the primaries. Powell strongly endorsed George W. Bush in 2000. To my knowledge, Powell has never before endorsed a Democrat for anything.
So what characteristic of Powell, or of Obama, or what characteristic that they share, makes the endorsement of Obama by Powell something so expected that it becomes a non-story? Surely Reynolds doesn’t mean to point out that Obama and Powell are both … highly patriotic, highly intelligent, and of unusually thoughtful disposition and temperate deportment. Does he?
Update A reader points out what should have been obvious to me: Powell’s endorsement is the natural product of the tribal loyalty that subsists among men who attended institutions of higher learning in Upper Manhattan.
