Colin Powell endorsement [VIDEO] predictable. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke with the Republican party during the 2008 election, to endorse then-candidate Barack Obama for president, calling Obama a "transformational figure."
So it should come as no surprise that Obama, whose proposal to maintain current defense spending has been attacked by challenger Mitt Romney, picked up the endorsement of retired Army Gen. Colin Powell, a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and former secretary of state.
"I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012 and I'll be voting for he and for Vice President Joe Biden next month."
Powell explained his choice to Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell:
“We’ve come out of the dive and we’re starting to gain altitude,” Powell said. “The unemployment rate is too high, people are still hurting in housing, but I see that we’re starting to rise up.”
Powell said that when Obama took over “the country was in very, very difficult straits. We were in the one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression.”
“The fiscal system was collapsing: Wall Street was in chaos, we had 800,000 jobs lost in that first month of the Obama administration,” he said. “Unemployment peaked at 10 percent, so we were in real trouble. The auto industry was collapsing, housing was started to collapse, and we were in very difficult straits.
“And I saw over the next several years stabilization come back in the financial community,” Powell added. “Housing is now starting to come back after four years; it's starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising."
The four-star general also said that Obama “got us out of one war, started to get us out of a second war, and did not get us into any new wars.”
“The actions he has taken in respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very solid,” Powell said. “We ought to keep on the track we are on.”
Nothing like throwing the administration you worked for under the bus just to score points with others.
