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James Baker's "Iraq Study Group" seems to have been cast on the same basis as Liza Minnelli's last wedding. A stellar lineup: Donna Summer, Mickey Rooney, the Doobie Brothers, Gina Lollobrigida, Michael Jackson, Mia Farrow, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Jill St. John. That's Liza's wedding, not the Baker Commission. But at both gatherings everyone who was anyone was there, no matter how long ago it was they were anyone. So the fabulous Baker boy was accompanied by Clinton officials Leon Panetta and Bill Perry, Clinton golfing buddy Vernon Jordan, Clinton's fellow sex fiend Chuck Robb, the quintessential ''moderate'' Republican...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 — The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations.

Can Iran help us bail out of Iraq? Maybe - but we'd better take a hard look at the price. The idea has reportedly been floated via a draft report to the Iraq Study Group (headed by former Secretary of State James Baker), which calls for a "dialogue" with Iran as well as Syria. Along the same lines, British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently said Iran could be a "partner" with the West if it did not develop a bomb. Presumably, we'd ask Iran to help stabilize the situation in Iraq, curb the Shiite militias and encourage the Iraqi government...

Bush Once Again Ignores Reality In Iraq Today, President Bush once again refused to acknowledge the facts on the ground in Iraq. In a week when major news outlets agreed that Iraq is now mired in a civil war and when U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that "we are almost" seeing a civil war, President Bush continues to stick by his stay-the-course rhetoric. [Washington Post, 11/27/06; Today, NBC, 11/27/06; MSNBC, 11/27/06] According to the Associated Press, President Bush declared "that an al-Qaida plot to stoke cycles of sectarian revenge in Iraq is to blame for escalating bloodshed, refusing to...

An expert adviser to the Baker-Hamilton commission expects the 10-person panel to recommend that the Bush administration pressure Israel to make concessions in a gambit to entice Syria and Iran to a regional conference on Iraq. The assessment was shared in a confidential memorandum — obtained yesterday by The New York Sun — to expert advisers to the commission from a former CIA station chief for Saudi Arabia, Raymond Close. Mr. Close is a member of the expert group advising the commission and was a strong advocate throughout the panel's deliberations for renewed American diplomacy with Iran and Syria. In...

Welcome to ChronWatch -- Striving for Balance in the News A Congress of Captain Queegs Written by Raymond Kraft Friday, November 24, 2006 In 1951 Herman Wouk wrote a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel entitled ''The Caine Mutiny,'' starring the fictional Captain Phillip Francis Queeg. The 1954 film starring Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg received seven Oscar nominations. If you haven't read the book, or seen the movie in the last few years, it's worth a trip to the bookstore or the movie store to refresh your memory. In ''The Caine Mutiny,'' Captain Queeg is a Navy captain of the U.S.S. Caine...

A Fuzzy StrategeryAgree to DisagreeBy Rob FishmanNov 15 2006Yesterday, Sun Columnist Billy McMorris argued that, as students, we should take time away from partying and sleeping, and express our gratitude to the nearly 3,000 soldiers who have died so far in Iraq. Billy does what George Bush does: instead of defending the Iraq War, he points to the sacrifices of our soldiers. It’s a crafty strategy of misdirection, to channel our grief for dead soldiers into support for the ongoing war in Iraq.There was a time when such sacrifices might have been sensible. Maybe at first, we could justify soldiers’...

When Republicans lost control of Congress in this month's midterm elections, there was plenty of cheering within the ranks of anti-war activists. Yet that glee at the GOP defeat should not be mistaken for support for Democrats. Although optimistic that the new majority in Congress will help their cause, activists emboldened by a vote largely seen as a referendum on the Iraq war intend to keep up, if not step up, pressure on Democrats and Republicans alike. "Some people felt like celebrating and dancing" over the election's result, said East Bay activist Bob Hanson of Rossmoor Grandparents for Peace. "But...