The assumption that Colin Powell only got where he did because of being given favours is bad enough - but it's accompanied by the assumption that when someone is given an important job that means that they owe a debt to the people who gave it to them. In other words, they are owned by their patron.

That's how they do it in the Mafia I believe, and I'm sure it happens in other corrupt organisations, including political ones - but the idea that someone should be criticised for failing to act accordingly beggars description.

That way of thinking doesn't bear examination - and that's why it deserves to be examined, and having been examined, discarded.