The Man Who Ran Washington review James Baker as Republican titan from an age long gone
about 5 years in The guardian
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser are superb on the ‘Velvet Hammer’, who served Reagan and the Bushes but also reached across the aisle
GOP grandee will vote Trump ‘to get conservative judges’
James Addison Baker III served as White House chief of staff, treasury secretary and secretary of state. He helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1980, skippered George HW Bush’s win in 1988 and quarterbacked George W Bush to victory in the 2000 Florida recount. And yet he was warned by his father to avoid politics altogether.
The lesson did not take. Lured to the game and government service by the elder Bush, Baker emerged from his time in Washington as an American grandee, a living vestige of an era when politicians negotiated across the aisle. Back in the day, Time magazine called him the “Velvet Hammer”. The nickname stuck. Continue reading...
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