Now It’s Iraq on the Agenda for Mr. Fix-It of the G.O.P.

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/washington/26baker.html?ei=5094&en=00e145bd3659e2e4&hp=&ex=1164603600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

November 26, 2006
Now It’s Iraq on the Agenda for Mr. Fix-It of the G.O.P.
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 — Everyone in Washington knows that President Bush has a lot riding on the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel searching for a fresh strategy in Iraq. But so has the man whose name has become synonymous with the group: its Republican co-chairman, James A. Baker III.

The last time he dominated the news was in 2000, in Florida, when Mr. Baker — a former secretary of state who has been a friend and a tennis partner of the first President Bush since the current president was 13 years old — led the legal team that delivered the White House to its current occupant. That was Mr. Baker in partisan mode, cementing his reputation as Bush family confidant and Republican fix-it man.

Now, at 76, Mr. Baker is in high diplomat mode, on a mission, friends and supporters say, to aid his country and his president — and, while he is at it, seal his legacy in the realm of statesmen, a sphere he cares about far more than politics.

“I think he’d like to be remembered as a 21st-century Disraeli,” said Leon Panetta, a Democratic member of the group, referring to the 19th-century British statesman and prime minister. “I think deep down he is someone who believes that his diplomatic career, in many ways, helped change the world.”

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Baker certainly has helped changed the world

for the worst.

[izzie]

2. I was thinking the same. He did so well when he was Sof State?

I must say I like the way Bush Jr. Does it. It is sooooo smart. People have to think like him or he will not talk to them. He must have been pinning pins on people the week Yale did the people run the govt. and the president works for them thing.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Baker is Tom Hagen to Poppy's Don Vito...

Something has always perplexed me about Baker and Reagan. How did he land the Chief of Staff job under Reagan? He was Poppy's guy (and his campaign mgr during Poppy's 1980 run to be the GOP's POTUS nominee) yet he became Reagan's CoS. How and why did Nancy allow it?:shrug:

[saigon68]

4. He has helped KILL Millions of people

And countless children, with his ass-clown antics

[Demeter]

5. Baker Could "Fix" An Election, Because All His Buddies Helped

But he can't "fix" Iraq, because nobody's looking to fix it. The only thing that's fixable is getting the hell out of there so that we stop wasting people, money and materiel, and let the Iraqis sort themselves out.