Helen Thomas- Finding a way to get Bush off the hook

[n2doc]

Finding a way to get Bush off the hook

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- Former Secretary of State James Baker is riding to the rescue of President Bush. So what else is new? Baker has been there many times before for the Bush family -- to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. This time it appears he is being called to help President Bush finesse his way out of the Iraqi debacle and save face. Baker is a master at resolving tricky situations, and he does it with a smile. He is the Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan panel, called "The Iraq Study Group," created last March with a nudge from Congress. The group is working on a report on Iraq which may offer an exit plan as an alternative to the president's widely touted "stay the course" policy. But it won't be released until after the November election. Naturally!

Ultimately, the report may get Bush off the hook in the no-win situation in Iraq. At a news conference Wednesday, the president reiterated his pledge not to "get out (of Iraq) before the job is done." But Bush said he was prepared "to change tactics" if Baker's team recommends a switch. The word "tactics" may be a rhetorical device to help ease an inglorious U.S. exit from the war, now nearing its fourth year. In an interview on Sunday on ABC-TV, Baker said in his usual manner of lawyerly obfuscation: "I think it's fair to say our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives -- the ones that are out there in the political debate -- of 'stay the course' and "cut an run.' " The phrase "cut and run" has become the president's favored jibe at Democrats who urge a pullout from Iraq.

Former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, is co-chairman of the group. One can only hope that its report will have a major impact on the floundering administration, which has to contend with growing American casualties in an unpopular war and rising discontent among its own loyal Republicans in national polls. Unfortunately Baker flatly rejected a quick withdrawal from Iraq on grounds that "you would see the biggest civil war you've ever seen." Well, what does Baker think is going on in Iraq right now?

Meantime, Bush has rejected as "just not credible" a report of public health researchers that there have been more than 600,000 Iraqi civilian casualties since the U.S. invasion in 2003. Bush is seeing some of his own party leaders turning off on the war. Sen. John Warner, R-Va. chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, returned from a trip to Iraq last week and said there might have to be a "change in course in three months." Baker, a skilled Texas political operative, had served as chief of staff in the Reagan administration and as secretary of the Treasury before becoming the nation's chief diplomat in the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush, father of the president and Baker's close, lifelong friend. Baker is well-schooled in Middle Eastern politics. In his 1995 memoir, Baker recalled his 1991 warning not to take Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein after the successful Persian Gulf War, fearing it would provoke a civil war that would take U.S. forces a long time to quell. For the same reasons, the previous President Bush decided against a full-scale invasion of Iraq after liberating Kuwait.

But the current President Bush preferred to take the word of the neocon advisers who told him the invasion of Iraq would be a "cakewalk."
more:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/288521_thomas13.html

[Demeter]

1. Not This Time, Jim Baker!

There is no way, short of a convenient death, that Junior is getting off this hook. He hurt too many people, publicly broke too many laws, and bragged about it on international media! He is more than toast, he's cinders. Hell won't take him when the world is through with him, because there will be nothing left to take.

[rodeodance]

2. who or what will hold his nose to the fire?

[corkhead]

3. JBIII is the BFEE "Winston Wolfe"

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

4. Helen Rocks! nt

[stopbush]

5. Here's the money quote that tells us this will be a whitewash and that

bush WILL be let off the hook:

"Former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, is co-chairman of the group."

[rodeodance]

6. I like her last line.

.....Meantime, U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington seem bent on trashing the Iraqi government, blaming it for not bringing the aggressive militias under control and indicating Iraqi officials are not up to the job of running the country.

That's what I call chutzpah. We invade and tear up a country; install our style of government in Baghdad and then criticize them for weaknesses and mistakes. Is that our passport out of Iraq?

What's more, those who play ball with us such as Iraqi Vice President Amir al-Hashimi -- who lost three siblings by assassination this year -- pay a heavy personal price.

If Baker's group does not find a way to extricate U.S. troops from the Iraqi quagmire, the American people surely will.

[Burried News]

7. Baker was on the Diane Rehm show today ...

lies from start to finish.

http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/

[SharonAnn]

8. And on Jon Stewart last night.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Baker should be made to clean the mess up

As he was a prime enabler of the corrupt incompetent's ascension to power during the coup of 2000. Looking in the camera for over a month lying to the American People with the bs of the "votes being counted over and over", when they had never been counted in the first place. If it had not been for people so integrity challenged as he, we would not be in Iraq today.

[MarinCoUSA]

10. It's 100% '08 Repuk Presidential Insurance! PERIOD!

This is 100% '08 Repuk Presidential Insurance! PERIOD!

Can we all please get together on this meme.
You don't have to be more educated than a bight highshool senior in an AP history class to know that there's no way in HELL that the repuke power brokers are going to let the '08 repuke presidential candidate approach that election having to run with chimpy's failed Iraq policy at their back. It's nice to hear how the adults are now coming to chucklenut's rescue and salvaging some national honor/treasure/prestige/blood; all to be revealed after the election of course- and throw in a Democrat co-chair for balance while you're at it. But for CHRIST SAKE- from the man who brought you Bush v. Gore no less-, this is FIRST and FOREMOST a repuke strategy to insulate the next repuke presidential candidate from having to run against Chimp O' The Desert.

Simply: Mama Jim Baker don't allow no Hubert Humphreys 'round here.