I give him credit for going to college and graduating - that was in the late 50s, before the free ride of "affirmative action" came along. In vietnam, he was suspected by many to have been involved in a cover up of the My Lai massacre, but it didn't seem to hurt his carreer. After vietnam, he caught the wave of gerald ford and subsequent presidents, notably of course jimmy carter, very strongly foisting "affirmative action" on the military. He got a review from his commanding general in the 80s as a poor officer, but such reviews didn't trump the "affirmative action" frenzy. Reagan appointed to high administration positions - the thing about Reagan was that while he didn't support anti-white racism as a policy (the only one who didn't since John kennedy) he would make obvious individual "AA" appointments - sandra day o'connor to the USSC was one of the worst. Powell argued against the liberation of kuwait, and was shown by history to be dead wrong. He went along with what has turned out to be questionable intelligence from the CIA re WMDs in iraq. From beginning to end, he was Mr. "Affirmative Action" - appointed because of his skin color, not his competency, and his actions proved it.