ryan chittum, a former "wall street journal" reporter, criticized baker in the "columbia journalism review" as "an iraq war-cheerleading neocon, goofball obama ridiculer, and author of some of the wrongest commentary of the financial crisis." chittum highlighted several of baker's previous writings, including a column in the "financial times" in 2003 in which baker mocked french opposition to the iraq war, and a column in the "times" of london in 2006 in which baker argued that "we are going to have to get ready for war with iran."