Powell To Endorse Obama?

Lawrence O’Donnell speculates that Colin Powell will endorse Obama soon:

When Colin Powell turns off his TV after the final presidential debate, he will have learned everything he is going to learn about the candidates vying to succeed his former boss, George

W. Bush. Powell has made it clear that he has been thinking about an endorsement for a long time but wanted to hear more from the candidates before making his choice. It now seems beyond doubt that Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama and thereby hammer the final nail in the coffin of the Republican campaign to hold onto the White House.

Powell has been flirting with such an idea for months.  So, it’s not exactly beyond the realm of possibility.  I think it is more likely than not that Powell will endorse Obama.  I’m not sure it will have massive significance, but it would certainly be a nice feather in Obama’s cap.  That said, I couldn’t possibly disagree more with the way Fox News has chosen to frame the issue.  Instead of ignoring the speculation, or discussing it straight up, they decided to frame the story in the context of a recent Africa Rising event that Powell attended in London.

Their headline: “Hip-Hop-Dancing Colin Powell Fuels Speculation He’ll Endorse Obama”

It begins…

Colin Powell showed off his hip-hop moves at an ‘Africa Rising’ celebration in London Tuesday, fueling speculation that the former secretary of state is about to endorse Barack Obama for president.

Colin Powell has his dancing shoes on, fueling speculation that he’s gearing up to do the Obama Two-Step.

The article is accompanied with a picture of Powell getting jiggy with it. The article bothers me for a few reasons. First, it couches a potential endorsement of Obama in racial terms instead of political/policy terms. Secondly, some of the wording is a bit…off color. I’m certainly not trying to indict all of Fox News’ reporting with this single criticism; and goodness knows that MSNBC has its fair share of absurd bias and journalist ethics issues, like David Gregory using significantly outdated polls to distort coverage about McCain. But, seriously, with articles like this they almost feed into Obama’s argument that Fox News is costing him support:

“I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told me. “If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?

“I guess the point I’m making,” he went on, “is that there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it’s powerful. People want to know that you’re fighting for them, that you get them. And I actually think I do. But you know, if people are just seeing me in sound bites, they’re not going to discover that. That’s why I say that some of that may have to happen after the election, when they get to know you.”

As I have consistently said throughout this campaign cycle, whether or not you support one particular party, you should always demand more. Demand more from the candidates. And, demand more from media outlets.