Powell punches back on TV today

Under intense fire from the right, former Secretary of State Colin Powell is preparing to answer his Republican critics in a television appearance today that is likely to add fuel to his long-standing feud with top conservatives in his party.

Today's appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" will come just days after Powell, one of the country's leading black political figures, told an audience in Boston that a new Republican Party is "waiting to emerge."

Powell's battle with the right flank of the GOP began in 2005 when he declined to run for president. A supporter of abortion rights and affirmative action, he quickly dropped off the political radar and did not resurface until George W. Bush sought him out as secretary of state. He left after Bush's first term and reemerged last year, when he endorsed Barack Obama.

Since Obama's victory, Powell has called for the GOP to target mainstream moderates and abandon "impractical" ideas. That message, delivered in fits and starts, has proved too much for some conservatives as the party struggles to find its voice following Obama's victory.

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney have attacked Powell in recent days as a traitor to his party. Powell has told associates that he plans to answer his critics -- today.

With his sustained blitz of television appearances and speeches, former Vice President Dick Cheney has established himself as perhaps the leading Republican voice against President Obama.

Not a bad time, then, to be in the market for a multimillion-dollar book contract.

Already working hard to meet publishers' deadlines is an informal writers' workshop of historic proportions: President George W. Bush; former First Lady Laura Bush; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the former presidential political mastermind, Karl Rove.

Members of the Bush group are in regular contact as they seek to jog their memories, compare notes and trade stylistic tips in their new lives as authors, according to friends and current and former aides.

"This is a group that kept their powder dry for a long time," said Ed Gillespie, a former counselor to Bush who stays in close contact with his colleagues. "People will get a firsthand account of the real nature of the decisions and the choices this administration had to make, and maybe there are some things people weren't free to say at the time that they can say now that can shed some light on some things."

Cheney reportedly is seeking a more than $2 million advance.

President Obama saluted veterans and urged his countrymen to do the same this Memorial Day weekend, saying the nation has not always paid them proper respect.

"We have a responsibility to serve all of them as well as they serve all of us," Obama said.