Baker’s Latest Assignment; tell Bush we lost

The cracks and fissures are finally beginning to appear in Fortress Bush. The AP is reporting that Congress quietly appointed an "Iraq Study Group" headed by James A. Baker to "assess the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq and political and economic developments in the troubled country". In other words, Baker has been picked to tell Bush that the war is over; we lost.

The group was voted into being with little fanfare to spare the White House any unnecessary embarrassment, but the message is clear; the adults are finally stepping in. The war has been so appallingly mismanaged that jittery American elites are forcing themselves back into the policy-making apparatus.

The group is led by Bush-family friend and consigliore, James Baker who helped the president squeak-by in election 2000 by convincing the Supreme Court that his client (George Bush) would suffer "irreparable harm" if the legally cast Florida ballots were counted.

Now, Baker has returned, leading a team of disgruntled government big-wigs and policy-wonks to see if they can extricate the recalcitrant executive from his Babylon folly. The move illustrates the widening chasm between American elites and the White House over the bungled handling of the war.

It's tempting to see this as the beginning of the end of the Iraq nightmare, but Bush hasn't listened to anyone for the past six years, what makes anyone think he's going to start now?

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