Franken's confidence in Powell very misplaced

I always feel vaguely uncomfortable when I listen to Al Franken. I guess it could be because I just don't care for his personality, but today, there was something else that made me uncomfortable. He was talking about Bush's lying to the American people about the aluminum tubes. Franken said he had trusted Colin Powell when he said the aluminum tubes could be used for nothing but building a nuclear weapon, and he felt betrayed. Of course, Powell told Bush just the opposite--that the tubes were no big deal, which makes him a world-class liar.

But why would anyone trust Colin Powell in the first place? Colin Powell accepted a very important job in the administration of a person with a history of dishonesty, ignorance, and callous disregard for people. That means Colin Powell set his standards very low. Then there is the matter of Powell's bigotry, which should have been a hint about his character. Or how about his participation in the minimizing of the My Lai massacre and other atrocities of the Vietnam war? Powell, like George H. W. Bush (who was later elected president of the United States, while the person who challenged his lies about the dike bombing was turned into public enemy number one by the Nixon administration), worked hard to make the American people believe that the war crimes being committed did not exist.

How come Al Franken doesn't know about Colin Powell?