James A. Baker Advising Boy George? Pray It Be So

Keep your fingers crossed. Insight.com is reporting that James A. Baker, ex-Treasury Secretary and the elder Bush and Ronald Reagan's Chief of Staff is now unofficially advising Dubya on the Middle East. Finally, at the behest of Bush's father, included in those discussions are an exit strategy for Iraq.

Baker and Brent Scowcroft are the two most experienced, diplomatic, and practical men from the father's presidency. Baker would have made an excellent president himself. He can eat Cheney and Rummy for lunch politically. He has an enormous constituency among all Republicans and many Democrats.

He knows and is trusted by all of our Arab allies ever since the first Gulf War. The elder Bush probably decided that he couldn't allow his underachieving son (mom and dad thought Jeb would be president) to self-destruct his presidency.

If Baker truly does obtain the necessary influence with little Bush, in place of the amateurish Rice and the fossilized Cheney and Rumsfeld, there is hope to get Bush out of office without making it impossible for the next government to rule with credibility.