James Baker's secret Iraq Study Group

[LiviaOlivia]

Polictical Animal
Kevin Drum
August 10, 2006
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_08/009317.php

A HIGHER POWER....Did you know that Bush family fixer James A. Baker III is busily beavering away on a task force to figure out what to do in Iraq? It's not exactly a secret (the New York Times wrote about it here)...

From Washington Monthly article A Higher Power":

Since March, Baker, backed by a team of experienced national-security hands, has been busily at work trying to devise a fresh set of policies to help the president chart a new course in — or, perhaps, to get the hell out of — Iraq. But as with all things involving James Baker, there's a deeper political agenda at work as well. "Baker is primarily motivated by his desire to avoid a war at home — that things will fall apart not on the battlefield but at home. So he wants a ceasefire in American politics," a member of one of the commission's working groups told me.

Specifically, he said, if the Democrats win back one or both houses of Congress in November, they would unleash a series of investigative hearings on Iraq, the war on terrorism, and civil liberties that could fatally weaken the administration and remove the last props of political support for the war, setting the stage for a potential Republican electoral disaster in 2008. (emphasis added) "I guess there are people in the party, on the Hill and in the White House, who see a political train wreck coming, and they've called in Baker to try to reroute the train."

~snip~

[Skink]

1. What uncover corruption?

EEE Gad!

[LiviaOlivia]

2. The big joke is

that this is supposedly a "bipartisan commission" and

"It's hard to know what the commission is really up to because its inner workings are nearly as secretive as those of the White House. Baker has imposed an ironclad gag order on all of its participants. The 60 people involved in the effort have been instructed, in the strongest of terms, not to comment to reporters on the task force's work.

So why would a Dem try and save BushCo?

[patricia92243]

3. Somebody posted a few days ago that they wondered how long it would be

before Poppy sent in Baker to rescue Shrub. Looks like he already has. I'm just surprised that it has been leaked.

[izzie]

5. And

as the saying goes with a Friend like that etc.

[Kolesar]

4. Maybe Iraq just needs a tax cut

:shrug: