Where I stand—Mike O’Callaghan: Colin Powell’s journey

Friday, April 6, 2001 | 4:56 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

HOW LONG WILL Secretary of State Colin Powell continue to serve in his present position? During the first few months of his tenure he has been turned every way but loose by those surrounding President George W. Bush and the president himself.

A recent issue of USA Today points to Powell as being a lone voice of moderation in the new administration. The hard-liners are running the Pentagon and are doing everything possible to run the State Department. It's almost the reverse of the prior administration, when Secretary Madeleine Albright all too often used the military as her favorite policymaker and enforcer.

Powell started to work with following up the attempts made by President Bill Clinton and Republic of Korea President Kim Dae Jung to peacefully unify the two Koreas. This was soon shot out of reach when President Bush embarrassed a strong friend, Kim, and sent him home like a small boy who had been rejected by a wealthy uncle. Powell received the same treatment following his first trip into the Middle East, suggesting a new approach in handling Iraq. The vacuum created by Bush in Korea is rapidly being filled by our friends in the European Union. As for our treatment of the embargo on Iraq, it's just being ignored by every nation other than Great Britain and Kuwait.

Probably even more devastating to Powell is the White House rapidly filling other State Department positions with their own brand of hard-liners. Even now there is speculation that they are undermining Powell's attempts to bring sanity to the department and the world it influences.

Joe Conason, writing in the New York Observer, believes that the hard-liners in the White House have quarantined Powell politically. Conason writes:

"He finds himself under attack from conservatives allied with the Cheney-Rumsfeld faction. Armchair militarists at The Weekly Standard warn that the Secretary of State is a closet Clintonite, for example, while former fringe Presidential candidate Gary Bauer suggests that any cabinet official, such as Mr. Powell, who dares to dissent from right-wing orthodoxy might be taken to the woodshed."

Conason goes on to ask who would take a man of Powell's stature to the woodshed? Certainly he says it wouldn't be "this callow President." Conason notes that, "As a Bronx native who earned his rank in combat and worked his way up through the ranks, Mr. Powell has never fit in too well with tough-talking cowboys, like Mr. Cheney, whose perennially hawkish views never prevented them from wangling a draft deferment. It is the difference between real toughness and its unreasonable facsimile that defines the debate between the Powell and Cheney factions."

The hard-liners advising Bush believe that eventually Powell will have a gut full and will bow out. In his book "My American Journey" Powell saw a coming problem in the Clinton administration. He told the president before inauguration, "You know I've spent most of the past twelve years serving Republican presidents. My fingerprints are all over their national security policies. But I'm a soldier first, and when you take office, you'll have my total loyalty. My term is up in September. But if you want me to go earlier, that's fine. Also, sir, anytime I find I cannot, in good conscience, fully support your administration's policies because of my past positions, I will let you know. And I'll retire quietly, without making a fuss."

The tough-talking Texans and their ilk had better hope that Powell goes quietly and doesn't make a fuss. It's beyond me how much more crap he's willing to take from people of inferior talent and a narrow view of the world around us.