The American Spectator

p> PASS FAIL br> Re: Philip Klein’s Realist Fantasies : /p> p>Thanks for the excellent analysis of the Iraq Study Group’s report by Philip Klein. I have little to add except to remind readers that this is the same James Baker who left Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf war, then refused to help the Kurds and Shia when Hussein began to slaughter them by the hundreds of thousands. He’s the same Baker who tried to prop up Gorbachev in order to keep the USSR from falling apart. He’s a loser in international relations and recruited like-minded losers for his study group. It’s no wonder he recommends the same losing strategy that he used to worsen the Israeli/Palestinian situation. br> — Roger D. McKinney br> Broken Arrow, Oklahoma /p>

The American Spectator is looking more curmudgeon-like than ever in its hopeless defense of Bush 43. Mr. Klein’s dismissal of James Baker willfully ignores the fact that Baker would not be involved today if we weren’t facing a military and political disaster in Iraq that would not exist if the current Bush administration possessed one iota of diplomatic sense. Sure, Baker has an ego, but you have no business heaping him with derision when he is using his experience in a noble attempt to clean up someone else’s conspicuous mess.

Mr. Tyrrell’s reference to “Bush’s vibrant economy with historically low unemployment, steady growth, and a stock market at historic highs” is a direct quote from Chairman Karl’s little red book. No mention is made that most economists see a slowdown, and possibly a recession, looming on the horizon, and that there has been no economic advance for the middle class in years. This is the one Ben Stein position that merits attention.

p>If you want to develop a reputation as serious journalists, take note that truth is more honorable than muckraking. br> —