So Sen. Clinton says that if she is elected president, she will send people like Colin Powell around the world on a mission to improve our nation's standing. Here's the quote:
“I won’t even wait until I’m inaugurated, but as soon as I’m elected I’m going to be asking distinguished Americans of both parties — people like Colin Powell, for example, and others — who can represent our country well, including someone I know very well,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a Fox News Web report. “Because I want to send a message heard across the world. The era of cowboy diplomacy is over.”
Given Powell's role in convincing the world that cowboy diplomacy was necessary, it seems he would be precisely the wrong person to send on this sort of mission. Sure thing, until his service in this administration Powell had both an illustrious and distinguished military career. But that's not the issue here. The issue is what has happened during this administration, not before it, and on that score Powell's service was disastrous. So unless he's willing to turn his goodwill tour into one big, long apology to the world community, I don't see how he could possibly do any good here.
As to what this says about Sen. Clinton's judgement... even assuming that she was speaking off the cuff, I can't help but wonder why his name was the first that came to mind. Powell would only make a good representative if you believe that the root cause of our problems these past six years was specific rather than systemic. If our policy failures came only as a result of a few bad actors - Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, and the neocons - than you might be tempted to believe that Powell was a good soldier who had been duped by some very bad men. In that case, you might be able to question Powell's specific judgments in this specific case, but you wouldn't necessarily need to go much beyond that. If, on the other hand, you think that our problems are more systemic - a combination of broken domestic and foreign policy processes - I really don't see any way to absolve Powell for his part in the story. He was, after all, the Secretary of State. Diplomacy was his responsibility for four years, and if he had a problem with its "cowboy" nature he could have resigned. But he did not.
That should matter, and yet to Sen. Clinton apparently it does not. Powell is a good man who served his country well until he failed it. Sending him on a goodwill mission won't fix the problems that he helped create. That should be obvious, shouldn't it?
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