"FINALLY, SIR, HAVE YOU NO DECENCY?" Powell tries to salvage his reputation....
us.gq.com
Casualty of War
Four years into an embattled Bush administration, Colin Powell is hard at work at something he's never had to worry about before: salvaging his legacy.
By Wil S. Hylton
A few weeks ago, I went to see Colin Powell in his office. The room was tiny and the light dim. An Asian lamp on his desk cast a faint glow onto the walls, and the shades of his windows were drawn, giving the room a padded, womblike feel. Everything was in earth tones. When I commented on the warm ambience, Powell shrugged his considerable shoulders and said, "Yeah, because I have stuff lying all over the place." It was true. He was surrounded by a jumble of paperwork and clutter. The bookshelves behind his desk were jammed with old photographs and volumes of world history, some upright on the shelves, others crooked and diagonal, halfway to falling off. In one corner, a podium was pressed against a window, as if he had been practicing a speech to the drapes, while in another corner his suit jacket was slung over a cherry valet stand, hovering above the floor like a ghost. In place of the jacket, Powell wore a dark blue windbreaker with the words BOYS & GIRLS club on the breast. He sat behind his desk with a calm, curious look.
I had come to see Powell because, for several weeks, his closest friends and colleagues had been telegraphing a story to me. Powell was finished, they'd said. Exhausted. Frustrated. Bitter. He was uncomfortable with the president's agenda and fatigued from his battles with the Pentagon. His reputation had been stained by his speech at the U.N. in February 2003.......
<font color=red><font size=6>STAINED? <font size=3><font color=blue>My a$$! RUINED is what Powell did that infamous day in the UN Security Council chambers. He destroyed his reputation. |
