Powell is one of the most pompous and monumental failures in American public life. He has played a leading role in every US policy debacle of the last half-century, including Vietnam, the Iraq-Kuwait war, and now the Iraq war. He also served as a helper to Frank Carlucci in suppressing the White House evidence that would have sent Bush the elder to the federal pen as a result of Iran-contra gun running and drug running twenty years ago. Powell is known to get his marching orders from an intelligence network that stretches from the CIA to the Pentagon, and which includes such unsavory figures as Richard Armitage (the man who outed Valerie Plame), who is probably still Powell's best friend. Powell has brought this country many disasters, and he now wants to bring us a truly incalculable one ­ a seizure of power by the totalitarian trio of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.