Ryan Lizza: James Baker Returns
These days, the diplomatic energy spent on Iraq isn't coming from Foggy Bottom or the Pentagon, but from an office building near Dupont Circle, where the 76-year-old Baker and nine other Washington establishmentarians have spent the last eight months working on Iraq policy options to be presented sometime before February. Technically, Baker is merely the co-chairman of the commission, which is officially known as the Iraq Study Group. (The Democratic co-chairman is Lee Hamilton.) But there's a reason almost everyone calls it "the Baker Commission." With little fanfare, Baker has become America's shadow secretary of state, boasting an Iraq portfolio broader than that of anyone actually serving in the administration.
If the war in Iraq sometimes seems like the tragic consequence of the psychodrama starring Bush 41 and Bush 43, Baker's imminent return to center stage will move the plot along nicely. Ever since 1970, when the 40-year-old Baker abandoned his Democratic Party registration and signed on to help manage the (losing) Senate campaign of the elder Bush, Baker's life has been deeply entwined with those of the Bushes--a fact that is already raising suspicions about his commission's looming proposals.
On the left, the conventional wisdom about Baker's return is that the Bush family loyalist will craft his recommendations to provide a face-saving cover for Bush's own modest course corrections in Iraq. On the right, Baker's ascent is eyed warily as an ideological rebuke to the neocons from the realist foreign policy establishment they sought to overthrow. But loyalty and ideology are only part of the Baker DNA. What he really craves is respect. The Bushes set Baker on his path to power, helping him become White House chief of staff, secretary of the Treasury, and secretary of state; but they have, at other times, undercut Baker's vainglorious self-image by dragging him into what he regarded as gutter-level political assignments--most recently, during the 2000 Florida recount, in which he successfully managed Bush's victory.
Those who know Baker insist that his vanity will ultimately triumph. "What's important about the psychology of James Baker is that he wants to be remembered as a statesman, not a political hack," says a former aide who worked closely with Baker for several years. "That's why the Iraq Study Group is perfect for him. ... He does not want the first line written about him in his obituary to be, 'James Baker, the man who delivered the contested election to George W. Bush.'" If the Bush 41-Bush 43 psychodrama got us into Iraq, it may be the Bush-Baker psychodrama that gets us out. ...
If Baker had an inflated view of himself vis-à-vis Bush 41--"Every morning, Jim Baker looks in the mirror and says, 'You're better looking than George Bush. You're smarter. Why aren't you president?'" a Republican consultant told The New Republic in 1992--one can only imagine his view of 43. Actually, a flip through Baker's new memoir, Work Hard, Study ... and Keep Out of Politics!, gives a pretty clear indication. There's George W. Bush on page 10, remembered as an"office boy" at Baker's Texas law firm. Later, while Baker negotiates the 1981 budget deal with a Democratic House member from Texas, there's a drive-by reference to Bush as the guy whom the congressman had beaten to win reelection. Bush pops up again in 1988 as"the ever-playful presidential son." At another point, Baker confides,"I always liked him, but I wouldn't have taken a bet in the late '50s or early '60s that he might ever be a governor, much less a candidate for president." ...