Now that it is becoming fairly clear that we will never know the full truth about the Joe Wilson, his lovely wife Valerie Phlame (did I spell that right? That just goes to show how much of a permanent impression she didn’t make on me.) and that whole attempt to undermine George Bush and his administration, now I will say it out loud -- I think Colin Powell’s fingerprints were ALL OVER that! I think he would sell a Republican, any Republican down the river for a sack of cheese doodles. He waited until the last few weeks before the election to say what he has known all along … but he wanted to appear reflective, contemplative, deep. OK, so having waited until the last few weeks of the Presidential campaign, to look very thoughtful, now he figures he can get the maximum bang for his buck. Now Colin Powell wants to come out and support Obama -- and criticize McCain! That's not thoughtful, that's conniving, and vindictive. See earlier observations about no loyalty. I’m supposed to be swayed in some way by this? It's one thing to endorse a political candidate. Did Colin Powell know he could do this without slapping the other candidate or party? Colin Powell said, in his own book, that he is the product of affirmative action. This suggests to me that he believes his career took him beyond his level of competence. Am I supposed to care that he has finally said what I would have predicted he would say?

Step Two: This latest thing I saw on line, “Pro-Military / Pro-Obama” is a bunch of racist hooey as well. Obama has been more than plain that he disdains the military. He has made it clear that we can expect him to surrender in Iraq, and to cut the armed forces at least as much as (if not more than) Bill Clinton did in his first year in office. He campaigned on it. Obama will not be the first President that has expressed animosity towards the military. Yet I know that Senator Obama enjoys significant support from the same military forces he bad-mouths. Don’t you think that is odd? If anyone were allowed to look at the faces of these supporters, the racial quality of that support would be obvious. But we aren’t supposed to do that. These are people who are more interested in supporting a fellow minority than in their own self-interest. The only thing that matters in their decision is the color of his skin. They are so eager to support “one of my people” that they are voting against their own jobs.

Racism is still alive and well in the military, but mostly visible among the blacks. I was sent to a conference on EEO last spring in Fort Knox. The instructors, all blacks, were bemoaning that the EEO complaints of the last several years had been solely against blacks. In fact, one of the instructors used that expression, “one of my people” to explain why she had made EEO her career. But when a white male in the class used the same expression back to her in the open discussion less than ten minutes later, the class came to a screeching halt and the instructional staff had to have an ad hoc conference in the hall.

The question they needed to discuss in the hall was whether or not politically correct speech applied to everyone, or just a muzzle on the whites, or just on the white males, or who exactly needed to follow these guidelines. To their credit, they returned to the classroom with the right answer, almost. The black female instructor never actually apologized for nor backed away from her original comment, but no sanctions were going to be imposed upon him for repeating her own expression about “one of my own people,” now a racist comment when spoken by a white male about whites instead of a black female about blacks. The decision was that we would ALL speak with more circumspection going forward.

In the 1960’s, there was a play called “Putney Swope.” The setting for the story was a board of directors of a large corporation. One member of the board was a black man, named Putney Swope, ostensibly a product of affirmative action, well past his level of competence and everyone knew it. Upon the death of the chairman of the board, the board members were tasked with electing a new chairman from their ranks. Each member wanted the position. Each member knew that all the others wanted the position. Each member knew that there would be many ballots and much arm twisting, negotiating and back room deals before a new chairman would emerge. So each member cast his ballot for the “token Negro,” Putney Swope, so that he would not feel slighted when the ‘real’ negotiations and balloting got under way. Of course, this was a farce about discrimination and reverse discrimination, and the black board member was elected unanimously on the first ballot -- to the stunned disbelief of all. Is there a lesson in this somewhere?