180 degrees ...

I find this in astonishingly bad taste.

Powell is not just "a" soldier, he is one of "the" soldiers of the last quarter century, along with Schwarzkopf and Patraus. Powell sat at the table inside the UN and made the US case for Iraq, and then takes up ideological arms with the likes of an Obama, Hillary, Wesley Clark, and by extension the "move-on" crowd which referred to his brother-in-arms General Patraus as "general betrayus." Its one thing to have legitimate operational disagreements with a Rummy, or a Tenet, or even the PoTUS, but this is the polar opposite (the Democrat Party) in terms of national defense policy from where he has been his entire life. He's better then that. I can't imagine even a "Rockefeller Republican" (as Powell once described himself) as having the slightest bit of policy agreement with an avowed socialist like Obama; so I can only assume it is either "sour grapes" (which would be a blemish on an otherwise impeccable record of public character) or he simply can not resist the urge to enable (as much as his endorsement can) the ascension of the first black US president.

I hope its the latter - at least then, he being black himself, I can find a sliver of legitimate emotionally based defense. Otherwise, its surely sour grapes for Powell, for he can not have a shred of policy agreement with the likes of the modern Democrat Party ... unfortunate.