Slate: Colin Powell, Frontman

[unhappycamper]

Colin Powell, Frontman: The former secretary of state spruces up Fred Malek's image.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, May 26, 2005, at 3:59 PM PT

You're Colin Powell. You've recently departed the Bush State Department, your Last-Reasonable-Man halo only slightly dented by your erroneous speech to the United Nations in February 2003 about Saddam's supposed cache of chemical and biological weapons. Mostly you're remembered as the guy who told Bush, when he contemplated invading Iraq, "You break it, you own it." You smell good. You look good. Now let's see what that reputation will buy.

According to the Washington Post, it will buy membership in the Washington Baseball Club, a group of investors with an inside track to acquiring the Nationals, Washington's new baseball team. Three years ago, the Washington Baseball Club entered into what it terms "an exclusive agreement with the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission to work together to bring Major League Baseball back to Washington, DC." Now baseball has arrived, and the Washington Baseball Club is the odds-on favorite to end up owning the Nationals.

But there's just one little problem—so small I hate to bring it up, really. The investment group's leader is Frederic V. Malek, who did something kind of naughty three decades ago. We all make mistakes, right? Malek's mistake—hey, you've probably been tempted to do the same once or twice—was agreeing to be Richard Nixon's Jew-counter.

MORE

http://slate.com/id/2119645/

[autorank]

1. This is why Powell will never take them on.

The biz community has been very, VERY good to Colin.