Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Iraq III: Pundits du Jour on the Baker Boys

Three perspectives on the Iraq Study Group headed up by James Baker and Lee Hamilton:
"Good luck. The chance that this group of aging white men, plus Vernon Jordan and Sandra Day O'Connor, will come up with something original is not enormous. It's a nutty and not very attractive idea to turn an urgent issue of war and peace over to a commission. Commissions have usually been trotted out for long-run social problems: immigration, debt, health care. Going to war is something that ought to be decided by the people we elect. Congress, in recent decades, has virtually abandoned its duty under the Constitution to make the decisions about when American soldiers are sent to kill and die.

"Presidents have foolishly claimed that authority. And now, inevitably, we have a president who is stuck with a war that he insisted on and a citizenry that has no interest in it."

-- MICHAEL KINSLEY

"The Baker-Hamilton study group will not produce any new thinking. The U.S. military has analyzed and gamed every course of action, including cut and run. For that matter, it gamed 'non-intervention' in Iraq as well. . . .

"If we are lucky, the Baker-Hamilton magic show will drop a scarf over the top hat and with a the 'poof' of a New York Times headline produce a 'unifying' policy of words that will let the Democrats join the war, despite the howls of their blogosphere nutsroots.

"Then the military will continue to do what it’s been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and the new Iraqi government will continue to learn by doing — and in the ordeal of war that will mean learn by bleeding, suffering, and sweating."

-- AUSTIN BAY

< style="color: rgb(102, 51, 51);">"You are sure to hear time and again how Baker et al. have given the Democrats cover to push even harder for withdrawal. And why do they need this 'cover'? Well, because they are going to be attacked by Republicans. Now, every time some GOP spokesman tells Tim Russert that the Democrats want to cut-and-run, Russert can respond that even the Baker Commission wants withdrawal (turn on your televisions; this is already happening). And why does the Baker Commission have such 'credibility'? Because the press has been telling us that it does. What a beautiful circle."

The whole thing reminds me of an argument I once heard someone make about how ludicrous it was that Nixon received such plaudits for 'opening' China. Why could 'only Nixon' go to China? Because, for the preceding 20 years, the Richard Nixons of the world attacked as soft anyone who dared go to China. And yet our history books blather on about how much we all owe Nixon for this wonderfully counterintuitive move. Ah, Washington."

-- ISAAC CHOTINER

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