Extreme makeover

Politics | A Cabinet shakeup raises questions about policy in a second Bush term | Bob Jones

When Colin Powell announced his resignation on Nov. 15, the world shuddered. As secretary of state, Mr. Powell was the most popular member of the Bush administration not only at home, but even more so abroad. Europeans, in particular, considered him the voice of moderation and reason in Washington.

French President Jacques Chirac, a vocal critic of the Iraq War, praised Mr. Powell as "a man of dialogue, well-respected, and a man of vision." The Russian press called him "a dove among hawks," and an editorial in Die Welt, a leading German newspaper, was even more fawning. "For Europeans, the U.S. Secretary of State was the John Kerry of the Bush administration: the last hope on this side of the Atlantic and a man who stood for a reasonable and measured foreign policy."