Powell Has Praise for Obama
By JEFF ZELENY
nytimes.com
GARY, Ind. — Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell may have contributed $2,300 to the Republican presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, but he is reserving his strongest praise for the Democratic candidacy of Senator Barack Obama.
In a television interview that was broadcast Thursday, Mr. Powell said he “admired” how Mr. Obama handled a speech last month on race. He also said he agreed with much of what Mr. Obama had said about the controversial sermons of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
“I thought that Senator Obama handled the issue well,” Mr. Powell told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “He didn’t abandon the minister that brought him closer to his faith, but at the same time he deplored the kinds of statements that the Reverend Wright had made.”
Mr. Powell noted that he was friends with all three presidential candidates. While he said he had not decided whom to support, he said he was impressed by Mr. Obama’s ability to “learn quickly.”
“With Senator Obama, he didn’t have a lot of experience running a presidential campaign, did he?” Mr. Powell said. “But he seems to know how to organize a task, and he seems to know how to apply resources to a problem at hand.”
Mr. Obama said that he had not spoken to Mr. Powell recently, but that he valued his remarks.
“He’s somebody whose counsel I value,” Mr. Obama told the Chicago television stations WGN and CLTV, “and I’m grateful for his recognition that we can have differences of opinion — or be part of different political parties — but that we can still acknowledge the service we are rendering to the country.”
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