Stephen W. Stromberg of Salon writes:
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Secretary of State Colin Powell won't be speaking at -- or perhaps even attending -- this year's Republican National Convention in New York. The article cited a "tradition" that Cabinet officials refrain from speaking at national conventions:
"But in keeping with tradition, Cabinet officials do not speak at the conventions -- or other campaign events. So Powell will not appear.
"'As secretary of state, I am obliged not to participate in any way, shape, fashion, or form in parochial, political debates. I have to take no sides in the matter,' Powell told the Unity: Journalists of Color Convention on Thursday. Powell was a featured speaker at the 2000 convention and even campaigned with Bush."
Funny, because sitting Secretary of Education Rod Paige will address the Republican National Convention on August 31, the second night of the 2004 convention. And if you hark back to the days when the Republicans had sitting Cabinet members to speak at their national nominating conventions, the "tradition" seems even less, well, traditional. Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole addressed the 1988 Republican National Convention, and in 1984, Dole, Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler and Chief U.S. Delegate to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick, who had Cabinet rank, all took the lectern....
Perhaps the most bizarre thing of all is Washington Post reporter Robin Wright's assertion, using the Third Person Omniscient, that:
GOP Star to Skip Convention (washingtonpost.com): ...in keeping with tradition, Cabinet officials do not speak at the conventions -- or other campaign events. So Powell will not appear...
You'd think he would have checked the RNC agenda to make sure that other cabinet members weren't on it.
Posted by DeLong at August 10, 2004 12:29 PM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this postBrad: Robin Wright is a woman. If you had known that, you would have understood her omniscience.
Posted by: Lance Garber on August 10, 2004 12:35 PMIs it odd? When I first saw this piece in the morning my impression was this is Powell's lame way of showing a certain lack of support.
Posted by: tegwar on August 10, 2004 12:39 PMDo they fear Powell's popularity so much that they think he'd thoroughly diminish Bush by comparison? It's pretty obvious that, whatever the result in November, there will be a new Secretary of State.
Posted by: oyster on August 10, 2004 12:42 PMMy guess? They were afraid some of the delegates would boo the man from the quisling State Department and to have a man as respected by independants as much as Powell is booed would not look very good.
Posted by: Rob on August 10, 2004 12:48 PMWhy would they want Powell to speak? How would it help Bush?What would he give as accomplishments?
Israel, Middle East Peace?
Iraq?
Saudi Arabia?
North Korea?
Iran nuke agreement?
Relations with Europe? France? Germany? China? Putin?
I bet we don't see pictures of Mr Flight Suit on the aircraft carrier at the convention either.
It will be interesting to see what Karl Rove has planned. My bet is militarism, keeping us safe and a Snow Job (pun intended) on the economy. The past 4 years have been nothing to brag about so my guess is the GOP convention will try to focus on the next 4 years and they don't include Powell.
Posted by: bakho on August 10, 2004 01:32 PMI'm pretty sure the actual 'tradition' (among both parties) is that the 'big' cabinet secretaries like Treasury, State, Defense, maybe Justice, don't campaign or speak at the convention. Other cabinet secs do. Check whether Albright, etc. spoke at the last Dem convention. I bet not.
Posted by: Andrew B on August 10, 2004 01:48 PMFor once, the is pure Washington press corps spin with no interference from the White House. Powell has been the insiders' favorite for 10-12 years. The cognative dissonance that comes from thinking about how badly he performed over the last 18 months is more than the DC press can handle, so they are self-spinning to make Powell look as good as possible.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer on August 10, 2004 02:45 PM" Snow, who has been to 20 states this year promoting Bush's economic accomplishments,.."
( http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=alRzsexEZZSw&refer=us }
Andrew B... There's something else about the precedents Stromberg cites: woman, woman, woman. As was obvious four years ago, Powell's blackness is a valued asset at Republican conventions. But if he's not there, Rod Paige is a spare.
Maybe I'm being too cynical. Will Elaine Chao be at the convention?
Posted by: Grumpy on August 10, 2004 02:55 PMMaybe there's not be enough time between now and the convention for Powell to fact-check the speech they've written for him . . . .
Posted by: Emperor Penguin on August 10, 2004 06:38 PMThey have an easy out on this one: they didn't know that Secretary of Education is a cabinet-level post. Kind of like Condi didn't know that part of her job as NSA was to coordinate information between the various intelligence agenvies. The major press will say, "Ah, that's reasonable. Working in the White House is difficult." And all will be forgotten.
Posted by: hamstak on August 10, 2004 08:24 PM