Opinion: Colin Powell echoes a Barack Obama talking point

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Colin Powell on ‘Good Morning America’ today sounded like he was giving Barack Obama’s talking points when it comes to the experience question.

ABC News’ Dianne Sawyer asked Powell what he made of the presidential candidate’s ‘relative lack’ of seasoning as a national and international figure.

‘He doesn’t have experience at the senior levels of national government. But I’ve seen other individuals come along who didn’t have that breadth of experience and what they do is surround themselves with people who do bring that experience.

‘With Sen. Obama, he didn’t have a lot of experience running a presidential campaign, did he? But he seems to know how to organize a task and he seems to know how to apply resources to a problem at hand. So that gives me some indication that (with) his inexperience in foreign affairs or domestic affairs, he may be someone who can learn quickly.’

This is a point Obama has made repeatedly -- that he should be judged by voters in large part on the presidential campaign he has put together, whose success can’t be denied.

In references to Iraq, he has argued that experience does not trump judgment -- a bid to spotlight his early opposition, while an Illinois state senator, to the war there.

And, as the New York Times reported in this story, at a fundraiser Sunday in San Francisco he mocked what government officials really learn when going abroad on ‘fact-finding’ trips while touting his own travels, such as a stop in Pakistan he made as a college student.

Powell, ever the diplomat and shrewd inside-the-Beltway navigator, this morning maintained the political stance that first drew attention almost a year ago, saying he liked all three presidential candidates and considered them good friends.

But he really sounded like an Obama man.

-- Frank James and Don Frederick

Frank James writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau.