&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Colin Powell, former Secretary of State, Joint Chiefs chairman, and omnipresence in American foreign policy for the past 20 years, died on Monday from complications from COVID-19. He was 84-years-old and been sick for years with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;Colin Powell was many things to many people. A symbol of the American dream. The public voice—for a time—of the Iraq War. A so-called “RINO,” or Republican-in-name-only. A &lt;a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/130304-the-good-soldier"&gt;good soldier&lt;/a&gt;. Though widely remembered as a barrier-breaking hero by folks across the aisle, in his death, as in life, there are those who are using Colin Powell as an opportunity for &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1450252233753378818"&gt;scoring political points&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Looking back at the life of Colin Powell, it is worth recalling that he was once one of America's most popular public officials, polling favorably among&lt;a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1975/powell-heads-middle-east.aspx"&gt; &lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/6886/powell-remains-most-popular-political-figure-america.aspx"&gt;85 percent &lt;/a&gt;of Americans in a 2002 Gallup poll. But what Colin Powell is perhaps most remembered for is his &lt;a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2003/sc7658.doc.htm"&gt;2003 presentation to the UN Security Council&lt;/a&gt; explaining the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A little over a year later, Powell went on &lt;a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/36100.htm"&gt;NBC's Meet the Press&lt;/a&gt; and essentially retracted his assertion, saying it "t&lt;/span&gt;urned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases deliberately misleading." &lt;span&gt;Brooke speaks with &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/fmkaplan"&gt;Fred Kaplan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;, a veteran reporter on foreign policy and national security, long-time writer of &lt;a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/war-stories"&gt;Slate’s "War Stories" column&lt;/a&gt;, and even longer-time husband of Brooke Gladstone, about the life and legacy of Colin Powell.&lt;/p&gt;

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