Colon Powell apparently thinks he knows precisely who it is that's to blame for all the very divisive political tone currently taking place in Washington. And just who is that old Colon sees as being the primary culprit responsible for all of the hate and discontent taking place in our nation's capital? Well, during an interview that took place this past Sunday with that imbecile Christiane Amanpour on her silly little TV show, old Colon saw fit to blame the media as well as, of all things, the Tea Party for the divisive political tone in Washington. The Tea Party, is he serious? Not surprisingly, however, neither the class warfare stoked by his good buddy, Barry "Almighty" and his Party nor the resulting Occupy Wall Street movement was mentioned anywhere during this seven minute interview. Here's how the whole silly little exchange went down:
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: What about this tone in the country right now? It's still very divisive. It's still very sort of brash, some say poisonous. I mean, you can barely get anything done on Capitol Hill, just behind me there. What needs to be done, to actually improve the tone and the ability of people to work together?
COLON POWELL: The tone is not -- is not good right now, and our political system here in Washington, particularly up on The Hill -- Congress -- has become very, very tense in that two sides, Republicans and Democrats, are focusing more and more on their extreme left and extreme right. And we have to come back toward the center in order to compromise.
A story I like to tell is our Founding Fathers were able to sit in Philadelphia and make some of the greatest compromises known to man -- tough, tough issues. But they did it. Why? Because they were there to create a country, where we have a Congress now that can't even pass an appropriation bill, and we're running this country on a continuing resolution which is -- what else are they here for but to pass appropriations bills?
And so we have got to find a way to start coming back together. And let me say this directly. The media has to help us. The media loves this game, where everybody is on the extreme. It makes for great television. It makes for great chatter. It makes for great talk shows all day long with commentators commenting on commentators about the latest little mini-flap up on Capitol Hill. So what we have to do is sort of take some of the heat out of our political life in terms of the coverage of it, so these folks can get to work quietly.
AMANPOUR: I get your point about heat and light, but what about the fact that, in fact, it is one of the political parties, although -- or rather the big political influence, which is the Tea Party, which quotes left and right the Founding Fathers? They say compromise is a dirty word, and they try to point to the Founding Fathers and the Constitution.
POWELL: They compromised -- the Founding Fathers compromised on slavery. They had to in order to create a country. They compromised on the composition of the Senate, of the House, of the Supreme Court, of a president -- what are the president's powers? Can you imagine more difficult compromises today? Compromise is how this country was founded, and unless two people in disagreement with each other don't find a way to reach out to one another and make compromises, you don't get a consensus that allows you to move forward. But the Tea Party point of view of no compromise whatsoever is not a point of view that will eventually produce a presidential candidate who will win.
AMANPOUR: General Powell, thank you very much indeed.
POWELL: Thank you, dear.
Now don't get me wrong, I very much agree with old Colon's regarding the role that the state controlled media has played in the widening of the political divide in this country. However, although the question was asked by Amanpour, any discussion of the Tea Party's involvement in the current tone should most certainly have included the Occupy Wall Street movement and what its participants both overt and covert are doing. This is particularly important given the press's adoration for a group so antagonistic to the most successful members of the society. And even if Ms. Amanpour neglected to include that at part of her question then old Colon, if he really wanted to be perceived as doing more than simply criticizing from the sidelines, he should have included it as part of his answer. But he didn't.
Neither did he bring up something else that was also glaringly absent in this segment. That being the fact of how we have a president and a political Party who are very purposely stoking the flames of class envy that fits quite nicely into exacerbating the current caustic environment. When the supposed "leader" of the nation continually talks about the rich not paying their "fair share," and in a way that so obviously defies any knowledge of the current tax code as well as who's actually paying most of the costs associated with the federal government, this has as much to do with the divisive tone as does anything else, if not more. Not at all surprisingly, this wasn't addressed by Amanpour or Powell. Exactly why might that be? That's a rhetorical question, by the way. We all know the answer.
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