Laura Rozen smells WH message making in Jim Baker's media blitz

[BurtWorm]

Whether it makes any difference, who knows? I doubt it. :shrug:


From Rozen's blog, War and Piece:

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005013.html

October 13, 2006

James Baker is nothing if not a GOP loyalist. So how coordinated is his book roll out (Comedy Central, Meet the Press, NPR this morning) with the White House in advance of the November election? My sense: totally coordinated. Is it not a very deliberately timed reach out and wink and nod to GOP realists -- see, we are listening to you? The adults are in the house? Cheney has been confined to the attic? With Kissinger? Safely reviewing 1969 Vietnam memorabilia? Baker with his mock naive, never thought of it before, well, it would be too political to release our Iraq recommendations before the elections, I'm just an independent reasonable foreign policy steward doing my own thing? Seems Baker is a witting campaign prop being coordinated by the White House to communicate the message, the realists will be in charge of foreign policy the next two years. Without the White House having to say it, or it necessarily being true.

Update: From reader JR: "Well said ... This James Baker ploy is a subtler version of Kissinger's Oct 1972 appearance at which he touched the breast pocket of his suit and said, about Vietnam, that the Nixon Admin had a plan for peace ('...peace is at hand.'). Shortly after the election, the Paris peace talks broke down and two months later, the Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong began ... Baker seems that he, too, is attempting to insinuate that the Bush Admin has a plan. Its just that there is no one actually left in the Administration (as was the case, sort of, with Kissinger in 1972) with the credibility to have such an assertion taken seriously." Adds another reader: "I think you're exactly right: it's like a secret plan for victory in Vietnam aimed specifically at uneasy GOP realists."
Posted by Laura at October 13, 2006 11:27 AM

[swag]

1. I groan whenever they wheel that scruffed corpse out on the handtruck

[WCGreen]

4. POS... He was behind all the shenanigans in FLA back in 2000..

[TomInTib]

5. Never underestimate James A Baker,III.

Never.

If there is a more connected person on the planet, I would be amazed. Hell, he used to pull Kissinger's strings.

Our families have been associated with one anther for generations and as much as I despise what he stands for, I have the utmost respect for his capabilities.

[KoKo]

10. But, are his capabilities any different from Kissinger's during Vietnam?

The comments from Rozen's readers kind of verify that he might be brought in just to give "hollow assurances" that the "realists" are in charge.

:shrug: Even the Mighty JAB,III might be "struck out," when there's such a mess that they've all made. Including him by helping install that Idiot in 2000.

[texasleo]

2. If we had an effective party chairman, we would call their bluff

and smack them with it.

[Homer Wells]

3. AHHH, Yes!

I do indeed so well remember the "Peace With Honor" shit that Nixon and his people shouted out from the rooftops, while, at the same time, we saw the helicopters being pushed over the side of the ships, the South Vietnamese hanging from the Hueys, hoping to escape the NVA and the victorious Cong.

Will this be our way of leaving Iraq??
Damn these politicians for shoving us into such quagmires. All that death for NOTHING!!



:mad: :mad: :mad:

[madokie]

8. Now as then, all for naught

to DU

[KittyWampus]

6. James Baker? They Guy representing Saudis in lawsuits vs. 9/11 families?

THAT James Baker?

[rodeodance]

7. there has been a sigh of relief from Repugs at the office---yes, Baker

will save the day.

[madokie]

9. have you noticed that the repukes always drag out a saviour if you will

someone they will toot as being beyond reproach