It's bad enough that Powell has turned into a shill for a man whom he once indirectly leveled withering criticism in his book for his mix of affluence, influence and (tenuous) military service. But Powell has even become the man he never wanted to be, or maybe he's become exactly what he set out to be; a respectable zero. Looking up some other information on the Secretary of State led me to this two-year old TNR article on Colin Powell, absolutely fascinating reading, follows his career from start to finish and lots of emphasis on how he got where he is today, he too is a Nixon-era alumnus/retread (White House Fellowship in 1972).

Compare this quote at the UN Security Council yesterday

Waiting his turn, Powell sat impassively Friday at the horseshoe-shaped U.N. Security Council table, taking notes. When his time came, he used the notes but also spoke extemporaneously, saying the progress reported by chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei was "all process, not substance."(emphasis added)

"What we need is for Iraq to disarm," Powell declared.

To this:

Powell often disagreed with the Army or the government, or with the direction of the country. But he rarely spoke out. Rather, he made a point of keeping his head down and doing his job. "Issues come and go," he once told The Washington Post. "Process is always important." (emphasis added)

Then there's this little nugget which I think is kind of relevant given the imminent events in the Gulf:

When George (H.W.) Bush declared that "this will not stand," Powell thought the statement was precipitous and groused that the commander in chief had not consulted him first, Woodward reports. In October 1990 he privately told Britain's air chief marshal--but not the president--that a war with Iraq could trigger an anti-Western backlash among the Arabs or decay into a war of attrition that the public would not support, according to The Generals' War by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor.

In the final hours of the ground war, Powell counseled the president to call off the fighting. It was the only "option" he proposed, even though the Republican Guard, which Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf had sworn to "destroy," had not yet been destroyed. The guard escaped to crush a rebellion by Shiites and to help Saddam remain in power. Confronted with an unexpected opportunity to rid the world of an evil dictator, Powell's instinct was not to improvise and exploit the opportunity. It was to quit while he was ahead. Pressed for answers afterwards, Roth writes, "Powell repeatedly reminded those who were disappointed that toppling Saddam was not part of the assigned mission

Now that's pretty interesting and certainly makes the case for being a shill. Maybe Powell ought to just get sandwich board that says "will abandon my principles for anything" on one side and just a simple "for sale" on the other, and stand out on the White House lawn on Mon-Wed-Fri and in front of the UN on Tue-Thurs. He can have Sunday off to go to church with President ReligiousZealotry, and go have Sunday dinner with his son (also available to the highest bidder..sort of a chippie off the old block, so to speak).