A Silence Loud Enough To Drown Out All The Rest

No less authority than Time magazine (and try to nominate a lesser authority than that) has decreed that retired Gen. Colin Powell can move into the White House any old time he wishes.

Perhaps this reasoning comes because the fellow has not given us any reason to vote against him. Mostly, this is the way The Addled Majority decides elections these days. If a candidate doesn’t have a bull’s eye on his back, he confuses the issue.

We don’t know whether Powell is liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, independent or Kiwanian, although we are fairly sure he is not a Ku Klux Klansman. He won’t say. His is the aura of an excellent poker player, although we can’t be sure he has ever played poker. He won’t say.

The fellow is aware of his subterranean attraction, and he will do nothing to disturb the mystique. He is, to paraphrase, keeping his political avenues open.

Currently, he is content to travel about making speeches - he’s very good at this - for 40 gees a pop. And await publication of his book, on which he received an advance in the $6 million neighborhood. Remember this - writing a book seems a prerequisite to any presidential campaign.

Powell worked the White House on a fellowship during the Nixon years, as national security adviser under Ronald Reagan and was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for George Bush, so he surely knows where the fuse boxes are located.

“Not a one of my White House friends can tell you today whether they think I’m a Democrat or a Republican,” said the general. Rather proudly, I’ll bound. He knows dang well he has the upper hand. How are you going to vote against somebody if you don’t know what he is? So if you can’t vote against him, then you must vote for him, as old-fashioned as it may seem. I’m not even sure current ballot machines will accept a positive vote.

One facet that serves the general well, to my mind anyway, is his sense of humor. The suspicious populace has come to consider a sense of humor as a weakness. Not since John Kennedy has a president taken the halter off his humor and allowed it to gallop around the pasture.

Think about it. Lyndon Johnson always looked as if he were sitting on the front row of a funeral. Jimmy Carter grinned constantly, like a magazine salesman, so you could never tell if he meant it.

In this age of constant visual exposure, looks seem as important as any platform plank. Powell has the look of quiet authority. Here again, it may be a pose. He won’t say.

Consider other candidates. Bob Dole’s normal expression is rather dour. Poor fellow, he can’t help it. It is the expression he was issued. (Remember the old gag: It’s a cinch he ain’t two-faced, or he wouldn’t be wearing that one.)

Bill Clinton appears to be blushing all the time, especially when there is military around, and you can’t blame him for that.

Phil Gramm seems earnest enough, but he looks rather like a gopher peering over a log.

And then there’s the general thing. Lordy, how we love generals. The way I figure, generals are 6-0 in White House races. Real soldier guys, I mean, not some honorary position in state militia. Gen. George Washington was the first, fresh from Revolutionary War battlefields. Heck, we wanted to make him KING. Andrew Jackson gained public notice by shooting the British and occasionally beating up on the poor Creek and Seminoles.

William Henry Harrison was a career soldier, as was Zachary Taylor, and Ulysses Grant came off the winning side in the Civil War. It was only a short walk for Dwight Eisenhower from the European Theater of Operations to the Rose Garden.

Powell is a television product of the Gulf War, although some curmudgeons rank that more of a turkey shoot than all-out battle. Frankly, if a president came out of that action, I figured it would be Norm Schwarzkopf because he was always on camera in camouflage clothes with his sleeves rolled up. But Gen. Schwarzkopf seems to have no political ambitions, preferring to hunt and fish.

We don’t know if Powell likes to fish. He won’t say.

MEMO: Blackie Sherrod is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News.

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