Colin Powell on Sunday blamed the media as well as the Tea Party for the divisive political tone in Washington.
Not surprisingly, neither the class warfare stoked by President Obama and his Party nor the resulting Occupy Wall Street movement was mentioned during this seven minute interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC's This Week (video follows with transcript and commentary):
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?
COLIN 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.
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.
It goes without saying that I very much agree with Powell's point concerning the media's role in the political divide in the nation.
However, although the question was asked by Amanpour, any discussion of the Tea Party's involvement in the current tone should certainly have involved 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.
Also missing in this segment was how a president and a political Party that are stoking the flames of class envy fit into the current caustic environment.
When the leader of the nation continually talks about the rich not paying their "fair share" - doing so in a fashion that 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 anything else if not more.
Not at all surprisingly, this wasn't addressed by Amanpour or Powell.
Exactly why might that be?
