head-scratcher

James Baker, the same man who secured the White House for Bush in the post-election period of 2000, is being greeted as a liberator by the Democrats. Apparently, they are so hysterically opposed to using American power to defend Enlightenment values and so bankrupt of ideas that they actually think it’s a good thing that Baker is back at the White House, that Scowcroft will have the ear of the president, and that the insufferable Brzezinski has reason to gloat.

Here’s the scorecard from The Times (London):

GOING UP. . .
# James Baker

# Robert Gates

# Brent Scowcroft

# George Bush Sr

# Condoleezza Rice Mark I and Mark III

. . . GOING DOWN

# Donald Rumsfeld

# Dick Cheney

# John Bolton

# George Bush Jr

Missing from this list, of course, is the eminence gris. (Pundits conveniently seem to have forgotten Bob Woodward’s recent revelation that Henry the K has been a frequent guest at the White House.)

For a refresher course on the coldhearted, hard-headed crew that will now be running our Iraq policy—the same folks who abandoned the Shi’ites last time—here’s a piece in the New Yorker that probably had a lot to do with Dubya’s post-election change of course.

America is a selfish, self-involved, narcissistic giant, and it wants to go back to doing what it does best: working hard and playing hard. We’ll see how that works out.