Bill Kristol, conservative commentator and magazine publisher, tells FOX News Channel today that retired Army Gen. Colin Powell, who served as President Bush’s Secretary of State, plans to endorse Democratic candidate Barack Obama — and “may well” do so at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

“I am hearing from people who talk directly to the Obama campaign that Colin Powell will endorse Senator Obama and he may well give a speech at the Democratic National Convention explaining his endorsement of Obama,” Kristol, who also is a contributor to FOX News, said on the cable news channel today.

“People are very confident that Powell will endorse Obama, and they think it may well be the case that Powell will speak on Wednesday at the Democratic Convention,” Kristol added. “That’s the national security night, that’s also the night the vice presidential nominee will speak.”

Kristol said this of such a move by Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who once was considered a candidate for commander-in-chief himself: Powell “obviously served the first term in the Bush administration; I don’t think that was a happy experience honestly for Secretary Powell, and, for whatever reason, I think he has decided that he is going to endorse Obama.”

For his part, Powell told ABC News this in response:”I do not have time to waste on Bill Kristol’s musings…. I am not going to the convention. I have made this clear.”

And Powell wrote this in an email to the Washington Post: “I am not attending either political convention,. As I have said for some time, I know both candidates and I am studying their positions and statements. I have not decided who I will vote for.”

So what about that endorsement?

Zbigniew Brezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, and one who stays in touch with the “realist” camp of Republican foreign policy experts such as Brent Scowcroft, who served the former President Bush, told the Huffington Post this about a Powell endorsement of Obama: “I sort of expect he will.”

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