Powell’s modest ambitions

Colin Powell has lived the American dream, said Nigel Farndale in The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.). From modest beginnings in the Bronx, N.Y., he rose to become a top military commander and the first black secretary of state. He could have gone further still, had he run for president in 1996, when polls showed his popularity soaring, and even Bill Clinton, who went on to win, was saying that Powell was the one man he didn’t want to face. Powell did consider running, but his heart wasn’t in it. “After six weeks of not having a single morning where I got out of bed and said, ‘This is what I want to do,’ I realized I didn’t have the passion for the job. It just ain’t me.” Nor does he miss the trappings of power—the 20 bodyguards, the private plane—though he does concede that becoming an ordinary citizen again took some getting used to. “You have to transform yourself and become something different. That begins at home. I was sitting at home with my wife, and I said, ‘Darling, this is the first day of the rest of our lives. I won’t be leaving the house at 5:30 in the morning anymore.’ She froze. Then I heard her mutter under her breath, ‘This fool doesn’t know how we stayed married for 50 years.’”

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