About four years back I hung out with a couple of black co-workers, one from Harlem and one from Mississippi, despised Powell because they saw him as selling out to Bush. I probably shouldn't use the terms they used to describe him, but you can probably guess. First word describes a type of abode, second word has the same root as the name of the nations of Niger and Nigeria. You get the picture.

So my experience was that many blacks did not look up to Powell. That said, I think Powell had, at one point, really done good things with his life and deserved credit for it. And you probably were right to see him as an icon. The moment he lost his respectability is the very moment he chose to follow the little Bush and lied in front of the UN to get us into Iraq. THAT is when his former greatness was squandered for the benefit of a president who didn't deserve that loyalty. So those who saw what he had done have every right to be disillusioned by his blind loyalty to Bush.