Krugman Plays the Race Card

In an otherwise excellent column($) in today's New York Times. "Snow Job in the Desert", Paul Krugman says the following:

In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressing the United Nations Security Council, claimed to have proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He did not, in fact, present any actual evidence, just pictures of buildings with big arrows pointing at them saying things like “Chemical Munitions Bunker.” But many people in the political and media establishments swooned: they admired Mr. Powell, and because he said it, they believed it.
Mr. Powell’s masters got the war they wanted, and it soon became apparent that none of his assertions had been true.
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I believe that the use of the term "masters" in this context is racist (and, believe me, I don't throw the term "racist" around lightly). The pairing, after all, is master-slave. To me, it is just a polite way of saying what Harry Belafonte said a number of years ago when he called Colin Powell a "house nigger". Belafonte later apologized, and Powell said something to the effect that " I told Harry I hoped we could get past using terms like that." I hope Krugman can get past it too.

By the way, there was some evidence. I believe there was a phone intercept talking about "cleaning things up before the inspectors come." It turned out they were talking about old stuff that might still have traces of whatever. Don't forget, Saddam did at one time have WMD's, some of them supplied by us, in which Donald Rumsfeld played a leading role.

All this vilification of Colin Powell makes me understand all the more why he didn't want to run for President. Barack Obama is feeling the heat now, and I think he should get out of the Presidential race, as I fear for his safety. I also feel there was some racism and sexism, not to mention intellectual snobbery, in the criticisms of Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, but I will save this for a future post.