Colin Powell seems to be a man whose pride apparently gets in the way of seeing the world as it is. Recently, he contested a statement by the likely democratic nominee for President, J.F. Kerry, that he had been marginalised in the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

Yet as a list compiled by Brad DeLong amply demonstrates, this is exactly what happened.

But there is an item missing on the list that I find particularly telling about the way in which Mr Powell has been treated by his colleagues, and, in particular, by the President. Last May, when the White House tried to slowly improve relations with the allies it had seriously alienated with its pre-war behavior, Colin Powell was sent to Berlin for the first meeting with the German administration after the heydey of conflict in the UN security council in February 2003.

But while Colin Powell met with the Chancellor, the President had nothing better to do than embarrass the German government, but even more so his own Secretary of State, by “accidentally” running into a meeting of VP Cheney with Roland Koch, the truly conservative Primeminister of the German state of Hessen. Here is what I wrote about their meeting last May.

Of course, everybody got the message… as did Colin Powell.