Powell Criticizes Tea Party for Divided Washington

Colin Powell was on This Week with Christiane Amanpour and the two had a grand old time blaming D.C.'s problems on the tea party (you know, because passing a budget is so difficult). Powell also blamed the media for honing in on the divisive rhetoric.

Here's the transcript from Newsbusters where Amanpour and Powell go after the tea party:

AMANPOUR: I get your point about heat and light, but what about the fact that, in fact, it is one of the political parties, although -- or rather the big political influence, which is the Tea Party, which quotes left and right the Founding Fathers? They say compromise is a dirty word, and they try to point to the Founding Fathers and the Constitution.

POWELL: They compromised -- the Founding Fathers compromised on slavery. They had to in order to create a country. They compromised on the composition of the Senate, of the House, of the Supreme Court, of a president -- what are the president's powers? Can you imagine more difficult compromises today?

Compromise is how this country was founded, and unless two people in disagreement with each other don't find a way to reach out to one another and make compromises, you don't get a consensus that allows you to move forward.

But the Tea Party point of view of no compromise whatsoever is not a point of view that will eventually produce a presidential candidate who will win.

AMANPOUR: General Powell, thank you very much indeed.