a placeless world

Never mind Bob Woodward's contention that, during President Bush's first top secret intelligence briefing, the commander in chief was more interested in scoring a handful of peppermint candies left on the table by Pentagon staff than scouring the differences between Al Qaeda and Al Yankovic.

No, the big news in The First Journalist's latest book is that Colin Powell was sitting the bench during the Bush team's sprint to war.

That's the talk of the morning — every morning — since the Pulitzer winner announced the findings he reached after exhaustive, but mostly anonymous, source interviews. Seems Woodward uncovered a timeline strongly suggesting that before Powell knew of Bush's decision to go to war, the President had notified a prince from a nation that gave us — and may have provided financial aid to — most of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

The revelation has Democratic critics and Republican faithful alike rhetorically wondering what Powell could have possibly done to earn such a snub by his boss. The not-so-well-kept answer is that the career soldier did not see the same value in rushing off to war in Iraq as did Bush and his cadre of career civilian advisors.

Given the clarity of hindsight — especially the eye-numbing view of Saddam's nonexistent arsenal of chemical and biological weapons — many are wondering why the most respected politician in America didn't take his squeaky clean image and run before the president marched him out before the United Nations to announce, with prosecutors confidence exactly "what the United States knows about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas went so far as to suggest that, had Powell resigned in protest of Bush's plans, he may have earned himself a "profile in courage," a term taken from the title of another Pulitzer winner's book. In the epilogue to that piece of work, then-Senator John F. Kennedy wrote "In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience… each man must decide for himself the course he will follow."

Kennedy wrote that historical examples — such as the profiles of eight stouthearted senators in his book — could be used as a guide, "but they cannot supply courage itself. For this, each man must look into his own soul."

Some have opined that the dovish Powell did look, and having done so found the depth of his being lacking.

In a light more favorable to Powell, Thomas has concluded that even good men sometimes fail to act when history calls for their courage. "Maybe," she wrote, "the real Powell will stand up someday."

But the answer to why Powell remained a team player in spite of his conscientious objections won't be found in Woodward's book, nor in Kennedy's. Powell may now be painted as a mysterious man with mysterious motivations, but the answers are hardly hidden. In fact, the answers are in a far-more conspicuous place: Powell's autobiography.

Thomas ignores and Woodward derides Powell's persona as "a good soldier" — and in doing so they miss a concept that is at once simple, elegant and extremely explanatory as to the secretary's motives — seemingly because they believe the facts contradict the image.

If Powell was such a good soldier, after all, he would not have made his opinions known in such a way that would earn him the contempt of his boss and war council peers. Soldiers do not ask questions. Soldiers do not contradict authority. Soldiers follow orders. Period.

Or so the thinking goes. But "My American Journey" is a homage to a different kind of military. Powell contends his career was built in an Army that is, in many ways, a significantly more amicable place for dreamers, visionaries and even opinionated skeptics than our hyper-compartmentalizing civilian society.

The true crime in Powell's Army was not stating an dissenting opinion but stating it in an inappropriate time.

And the true rewards came to those officers, like Powell, who were keenly able to bring brilliant results even while executing plans with which they had stated vehement disagreement during preparational phases.

In other words, Powell's Army rewarded those who could separate their passions from their duty.

But Powell's Pentagon paradigm fit like a a square peg in an oval office. To see that, we need look no further than Woodward's description of Donald Rumsfeld and his ever-intense chorus of "Why? Why? Why?" The song rings loud in Rumsfeld's dealings with all those he encounters — except Bush, who likes his yes men set to yes mode.

Powell — operating under the premise that his questions and doubts were acceptable until Bush told him "put your war uniform on," at which point the secretary snapped to attention and did as ordered. Not good enough for Bush, who still forced Powell to prove his loyalty by bringing to the United Nations an extremely flimsy case for ridding Iraq of its purported weapons of mass destruction. Even then, according to Woodward, Bush continued to allow his inner harem of hawks to snicker behind the secretary's back.

Kennedy predicted that men would most often fail to make history due to an unwillingness to make a decision to sacrifice friends, fortune, contentment and the esteem of fellow man.

Powell seems to have has lost all of those things, not for his unwillingness to make a decision, but rather for his incapacity to do so.

Still, his lesson may be used as a guide. Not for those who aspire for courage, but for those who aspire to bridge military and civilian ideas of what courage entails.