Times UK: "Bush family janitor" James Baker returns to "mop up"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Bush 'janitor' back to mop up

By Tom Baldwin

The US President is relying on his father's key ally to find a way out of the Iraq war

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2150305,00.html

THE Bush family’s faithful fixer is, with little fanfare, slipping back into the key role of finding a “way forward” — if not a way out — for America in Iraq. When James Baker last month became co-chairman of a congressional task force known as the Iraq Study Group, the news was buried beneath an avalanche of headlines about the invasion’s third anniversary and the deepening troubles of the Administration.

But slowly Washington is waking up to just how significant the re-emergence of this 75-year-old statesman may be. Although Mr Baker’s appointment is understood to have been made with the blessing of the White House, he will forever be associated more with the first President Bush than the second.

As such, he is not only representative of a different era of foreign policy, but he is also a target of the neoconservatives, who held sway in Washington until recently. For them he embodies the cautious pragmatism of the 41st President, not the bold approach of the 43rd.

Well-placed sources told The Times that Mr Bush had lately been consulting his father more often. This has coincided with a return to a multilateral approach to foreign policy. Mr Baker was Secretary of State at the time of the Gulf War, when he argued forcefully that it would be “ridiculous from a practical standpoint” for US troops to march on to Baghdad and oust Saddam Hussein.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Baker is almost as evil as Rove.

[stillcool]

2. I think he's worse...

he's just slicker.

[BrklynLiberal]

7. You are probably right. Older and more evil, just more subtle.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

3. ...and he's probably trying to find an evil way out of Iraq, too.

Seriously...if Baker is involved, and if Bush is consulting his daddy (something a TRUE Oedipal zealot, which GWB IS, would do only under desperate measures), it's all about the spin. It's all about saving face. It's all about crafting an exit strategy that doesn't look like an exit strategy to the "unwashed masses."

If Bush wanted an exit strategy for Iraq, without any additional agenda attached, he could just pick up the phone and call John Murtha.

:evilgrin:

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Due consiglierei

e

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Great minds!!!!!!!

[saltpoint]

4. I like the writer's use of the noun 'fixer' to describe Jim Baker.

Baker was the mastermind of the post-election thievery of the 2000 election in Florida.

He's a walking red flag.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Another appropriate term would be "consigliere".

[saltpoint]

9. Exacto! LOL!

Good god what an evil piece of work this guy is.