great American died this week, a victim of myeloma and Covid-19. Upon his death, he also became a victim of the journalistic tendency to highlight moments of controversy that were small parts of a much larger life of accomplishment or public service. In Colin Powell’s case, that moment was the speech before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 that was part of the George W. Bush administration’s sales pitch for launching a war in Iraq.
The Fourth Estate’s immediate responses to Powell’s passing varied regarding the tendency to highlight the small over the large. The Washington Post, to its credit, gave full and respectful treatment to Powell’s accomplishments both in the obituary by Bradley Graham and in the paper’s lead editorial. In contrast, the New York Times put in the very first sentence of its front-page piece on Powell that he gave the speech that “helped pave the way for the United States to go to war in Iraq.”
