Drudge is linking the NY Times article about Iraq war blogger extraordinaire Michael Yon today. Weirdly, NYT stuck the piece in their business section.

Buying opportunity as world markets react to Wall Street. Details.

Colin Powell appeared this a.m. with the ladies of the View on ABC. The former Secretary of State shrugged off their glowing compliments wishing he had been president as he updated them on what he's been doing lately. One of his current projects is raising funds for the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, DC which isn't proceeding quickly. (Joy Behar suggested he hit up George Soros since he strongly backs liberal causes. Not surprisingly, Mr. Powell said he hadn't thought of George Soros, but that that they were more interested in having the funding come from a broad base of support of citizens across America, rather than a few large donors).

When asked to discuss the presidential race, Mr. Powell said he had not picked a candidate to back yet. But he thinks we have a good slate of candidates from both parties.

Referring to a conversation before he came on stage about the role of race and gender in the current campaign, Mr. Powell said he didn't think anyone should vote for a candidate because of their race or gender. Unlike many recently, the Republican former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff doesn't mind partisanship during the rough and tumble of campaigning. He said a campaign is precisely the time to bring out variances in views and agendas and hash them out in front of the American people. Mr. Powell reminded the audience that America has been playing rough during campaigns for over 200 years -- including the occasional duel early on.

In a round about way Joy Behar also gave Mr. Powell the opportunity to diss President Bush, but to his credit, Mr. Powell didn't take the bait.

Cornell West embraces Barack Obama at the Martin Luther King rally today at the capitol in Columbia, SC.

Update: Interestingly, the photos of this rally have been pulled from Yahoo News in the last few moments and are no longer available.

This page from the National Black Republicans says so. Not really a surprise, considering most American descendants of slaves (who were freed by the efforts of abolitionists that eventually formed the base of the Republican Party) were Republicans prior to the mid 1960s.

The article points out that both JFK and Al Gore's father, (and both Democrats, of course) voted against the civil rights legislation of 1957 that preceded the 1964 legislation Lyndon Johnson signed into law.

Debunking "fairytales" is so tiring.

Obama campaign suppressing votes through union supporter says Bill Clinton.

Video link via Drudge. Click photo to access video.