Hell of a Comeback

...The fact that Bush-era luminaries are lending support to Clinton-administration programs is not surprising—indeed, the Bush people are not saying anything substantively different from what they have always said...

...The favorable publicity Powell may receive there reportedly is causing anxiety at the White House, which sees him as a potential opponent in 2000...

...It's hard to blame the Clinton administration for putting willing Republicans to good public-relations use—it's all part of building a "center governing coalition," explains White House press secretary Mike McCurry happily—but there have been several unintended consequences...

...The day before he appeared at the White House, Baker addressed students at Georgetown University...

...Should recalcitrant right-wing Republicans in the Senate continue to stonewall ratification, Baker warned, "we will throw in our lot with the rogue states which oppose this treaty...

...James Inhofe asked Gen...

...Watching onetime public officials desperately clinging to relevancy when they aren't really relevant is a little like tuning in late-night TV and catching aging prime-time soap actresses doing infomercials for skin-care products...

...Twice in the last several weeks, the Clinton White House has sent out a call for help to aging Bushies...

...How did Baker move from the relative obscurity of Houston to the utter obscurity of the North African desert and back to the national stage all in under 30 days...

...Much of the blame must go to President Clinton, who has made something of a hobby of refurbishing washed-up Republican moderates...

...By the sixth paragraph, the envoy to the Western Sahara was declaring, "My first challenge is maintaining our role in the Pacific in ways that advance regional security and prosperity...

...His charge: to quell a dispute between the government of Morocco and a rebel group over a sparsely populated tract of land...

...Baker already sounds wistful for his days as a Middle East negotiator...

...Pressed for his views on Article X of the treaty, which would compel the United States to share defense technology with co-signatories such as Iran, Schwarzkopf all but fell apart: "As I said, Senator, I'm not familiar with all the details—I—you know, a country, particularly like Iran, I think we should share as little as possible with them in the way of our military capabilities...

...The convention, Baker pointed out, had originally been negotiated under the Reagan and Bush administrations...

...Next thing you know, he'll be monitoring elections and praising the shapely figures of dictators' wives...

...Sure, it's annoying to hear such sappy banalities from a man who should be relaxing by the pool at his house in suburban Texas...

...Clinton spent the bulk of his opening remarks thanking Baker and the various Republicans who had joined him on chemical weapons, including Bush veterans Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell as well as former senators Warren Rudman and Nancy Kassebaum Baker...

...But it's also sort of sad...

...Compared with the frothing former secretary of state, in fact, the president seemed unusually presidential, above mere political considerations...

...Four days later, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, current secretary of state Madeleine Albright continued the theme...

...At a recent press conference, the head Democrat went so far as to cite Republican support for the Chemical Weapons Convention as his main argument for it...

...But Baker's reemergence also is evidence of a larger and stranger trend: Bush-administration chic...

...There is no excuse for bombs, but in my view there is also no excuse for bulldozers...

...Which, of course, was exactly the point...

...In early April, he attacked the administration from the left, criticizing "my government" for not doing more to stop the construction of Israeli apartments in East Jerusalem...

...I would like to cast my remarks broadly in terms of a few of the key foreign policy challenges confronting the United States on the eve of the 21st century," he began, and it got more ambitious from there...

...This is political rhetoric at its most overheated, and with Baker employing it, Clinton didn't have to...

...Schwarzkopf hasn't been heard from on the subject much since...

...Albright slathered Republicans in sorghum-thick praise, citing "wise diplomats" like Baker and Scow-croft, "experienced military leaders" such as retired generals Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, and "thoughtful public officials" like Kassebaum Baker who have worked to support the Clinton chemical weapons policy...

...I do not believe that all those military leaders who were here with us earlier this week and the Republican leaders, including Sen...

...Later this month, Colin Powell (and Bush himself) will share a stage with Clinton at the self-consciously bipartisan Volunteerism Summit in Philadelphia...

...Schwarzkopf to explain his position on a specific aspect of the Chemical Weapons Convention...

...To oppose it now, he implied, would be tantamount to spitting in the faces of those two great presidents: "Frankly, the suggestion that George Bush and Ronald Reagan would negotiate a treaty detrimental to this nation's security is outrageous...

...Perhaps worst of all, the administration's decision to bring back the Bushies has led to an alarming rise in Jimmy Carter Syndrome, a latent viral illness that causes justly retired political figures to share their opinions in public...

...Tucker Carlson is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard...

...Bill Clinton, on the other hand, hasn't slowed down a bit...

...Kassebaum Baker and former Secretary of State Jim Baker, would do something that was dangerous for America," declared Clinton earnestly...

...The relationship between the White House and Powell is sure to get more uncomfortable from there...

...Nor is it all that surprising just how tedious it has been to hear them say it again...

...It did not amount to a compelling case...

...From the golf course and lecture circuit they have come, to be trotted out in public forums to add bipartisan luster to Clinton initiatives...

...At a Senate hearing in late February, Sen...

...I am deeply disappointed, if I may say so, that we have let bombs and bulldozers drive the process," a grave Baker told the Washington Times...

...In other words, support this treaty, or America will descend to the moral level of North Korea...

...Less than a month later, the former secretary of state found himself standing on the South Lawn of the White House lecturing the American people on the merits of the Chemical Weapons Convention...

...David Gergen, Dick Morris, Bill Cohen . . . none would be appearing regularly on television today were it not for the perverse generosity of Bill Clinton...

...Consider Baker's remarks at a White House rally for the Chemical Weapons Convention...

...Clinton, CNN reported, "felt her introduction seemed cursory, lacked respect...

...I will confess to you that I have not read every single detail of that convention, so therefore I really can't give you an expert opinion," admitted Schwarzkopf, who had come to deliver his expert opinion...

...During a "motivating videoconference" in preparation for the summit, Powell caused a minor controversy by introducing Hillary Clinton in a way she and her husband considered insufficiently laudatory...

...The Clintons created the perfect conditions for an outbreak, and, sure enough, James Baker caught an especially bad case...