Surely Not What Jim Baker Intended

Jim Baker was so tickled by his portrayal in the new HBO film Recount that he actually scheduled an advanced screening of the fictionalized Florida recount retrospective at the Houston public policy institute that bears his name.

In some ways, he should be. While the movie makes clear that the facts at the heart of Read More

An Alternative to Baker: Kill Our Enemies, Quickly

I don’t know how the poet Horace managed to get an advance copy of the report of the Iraq Study Group—everyone expects leaks, but 2,000 years ahead of time?—yet he seems to have managed it: “Mountains will be in labor, the birth will be a single laughable mouse.”

James Baker is an intelligent man, so Read More

Finding New Ways To Confront Old Woes

The other side holds no elections. No one in Al Qaeda has called for a timetable whereby they would begin to stop blowing up Iraqis and crusaders. No one in Iran has proposed a bipartisan commission to re-examine the country’s nuclear program, or its war on Jews. So every problem we had on the first Read More

Prediction: Bush Will Now Emulate His Father Re Israel/Palestine

The Gates appointment to replace Don Rumsfeld is important: I think it might signal a shift in George Bush’s thinking (I know, that’s an oxymoron) re Israel/Palestine.

Consider a few facts:

Former Sec’y of State James Baker is now of course prominent in Iraq policy. Baker is famous for showing contempt for the Israel Read More

Saudi Secrets Are Safe With Bush

At the nexus of diplomacy and secret intelligence, governments almost never speak forthrightly about their purposes. When ranking officials decide what can be revealed and what must be concealed, political expedience is at least as important as national security. And on the rare occasion when such an official publicly demands the disclosure of embarrassing information, Read More

Bush Camp’s Pit Bulls Assert Their Entitlement

Apart from the lesson in democracy and its distempers on

display in Florida since Election Day, the American people have been afforded

an instructive glimpse of the operation that will be installed if George W.

Bush does ultimately prevail.

The Texas Dauphin himself, like his opponent Al Gore, has remained

largely absent from view. Read More