Wednesday, October 18, 2006

James Baker: Our Best Hope

James Baker....the man who does the tough jobs for George W.:

"In the face of this disaster — on the ground and in the public’s mind — someone has to tell the president the truth, and James Baker was made for the role. A Bush family loyalist his whole career, he served George the Elder as secretary of state, and then, after the 2000 election, captained the legal team that made George the Younger president.

The Iraq Study group (which Baker co-chairs with Democrat Lee Hamilton) is a strange animal, created by Congress and a bunch of think tanks. Its recommendations would probably disappear on a dusty shelf except for one thing: the widespread belief that Baker is acting with the blessing of his old friend, Bush 41.

There’s a long and complex history here. Bush the Elder refuses to criticize his son in public, but after the first Persian Gulf War, he made clear his view that invading Iraq was a dreadful idea. Baker shares that opinion, and wrote recently that deposing Saddam Hussein after the 1991 conflict would have triggered a civil war and left the United States confronting “a military occupation of indefinite duration.”

Bush the Younger obviously didn’t listen to these prescient warnings. Instead he picked a defense secretary, Don Rumsfeld, who his father deeply distrusted, and made invading Iraq the keystone of his presidency."


Look for more goodness from these guys when we can be more thruthful. You know, after the election.