Colin Powell

Re “Understanding Powell Mania,” by Donna Mungen, Commentary, July 17:

Mungen’s article on Gen. Colin Powell may be the most absurd thing I’ve ever read in The Times, which is saying something. Two egregious flaws in her reasoning:

First, her laughable implications that Powell and the Rev. Jesse Jackson are politically interchangeable. Consider these elements of Jackson’s political agenda that Mungen chose to ignore: his support for the growth of the nanny state, even as our federal government threatens to evolve into Big Mother. Jackson’s steadfast defense of the judicial hijacking of the state’s monopoly on the use of coercive force to advance a hyper-legalistic cult of the autonomous individual. One might also mention his penchant for socialist economic policies, his defense of the welfare state and his embrace of the victim mentality. There is no evidence of any similarity between these elements of Jackson’s politics and Powell’s moderate conservatism.

Second, her accusation that Powell was AWOL during the “civil rights battles.” Perhaps he was, but maybe he was doing something more important.

During the same time that those battles roiled civil society, the American military was successfully moving toward its status today as our most colorblind institution. Gen. Powell has been credited with helping to make our military an institution that treats people of all races more fairly than any other institution in our society.

STEVE BAINBRIDGE

Los Angeles

* Americans like Powell because he is a man of reason, intelligence and discipline. In her heart of hearts Mungen would not admit that whites could look beyond his color and admire him for his character and concern for his country.

Jackson is a political pariah because he has spent a lifetime promoting himself. Whites can see through that too!

Mungen needs to rethink her muddle-headed, biased, racist nonsense but then, of course, she wouldn’t get published in the liberal media.

PRISCILLA KOEHLER

Rancho Palos Verdes

* Take out the words “white” and “black” and you would have a fairly unbiased article on Powell.

CATHERINE M. O’BRIEN