The former secretary of State has been telegraphing his unease with Romney's foreign policy for months.

CBS

President Obama scored a big endorsement Thursday morning from Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Bush Administration secretary of State. "I think, generally, we've come out of the dive and we're starting to gain altitude," Powell said on CBS's This Morning. "I voted for him in 2008, and I plan to stick with him in 2012. I'll be voting for he and for Vice President Joe Biden next month."

There's no reason to expect Powell's endorsement will have a major effect on the election: it's a tight contest; the margin will likely be close no matter what; Powell's profile is lower than it once was; and few voters will be swayed by foreign-policy arguments. But Powell is a self-described lifelong Republican and was one of the "Obama Republicans" who notably defected from the GOP in 2008. He's also one of the few to again back the president publicly.

That party affiliation has brought out some ugly reactions, most notably from Ben Shapiro of Breitbart.com. This will be no surprise to those who remember Shapiro and Breitbart.com's hyping of a video of Obama embracing controversial Professor Derrick Bell two decades ago. Here's a screengrab from Shapiro's Twitter feed this morning:

It's certainly plausible that both Obama and Powell have benefited from affirmative action, although it's also apparent that both men -- regardless of political views -- are talented and could not have achieved what they have only based on racial considerations. Moreover, this is a great example of a phenomenon that Conor Friedersdorf has noted: "Anyone with open eyes can see that people on the left and right illegitimately exploit racial divisions in bids for power; that many conservatives are as race-obsessed as any liberal; and that today's conservative movement needlessly brings up race all the time." *