Republicans are frothing from the mouth
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Republicans are frothing from the mouth
O’Neill Book Paints Devastating Portrait of Bush
January 14, 2004
O'Neill Book Paints Devastating Portrait of Bush
By REUTERS
Filed at 0:33 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's
portrait of George W. Bush depicts a passive and superficial president
surrounded by right-wing ideologues who lacks the intellectual rigor or
even the curiosity to think through the effects of his policies.
O'Neill, who served from January 2001 until he was ousted in December
2002, made headlines over the weekend for his assertion that Bush began
laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq almost immediately after
taking office.
That was nine months before the administration began saying Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction presented an immediate threat to the United States in
the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
In detailed recollections of cabinet infighting and his own one-on-one
meetings with Bush, as recounted to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron
Suskind, O'Neill provides a rare insight into an unusually secretive
administration and glimpses of a president with sometimes unusual
priorities.
Suskind's book, ``The Price of Loyalty,'' for which O'Neill was the
principal source, went on sale on Tuesday.
The Treasury Department on Monday asked for an investigation into whether
a classified document was displayed during a CBS television interview with
O'Neill that aired Sunday.
In the book, O'Neill says the tone of his relationship with Bush was set
at their very first meeting where he was offered the job of Treasury
Secretary.
Instead of a detailed discussion, Bush was more interested in why the
cheeseburgers he had ordered were slow to appear. He interrupted the talk
to summon White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
``You're the chief of staff. You think you're up to getting us some
cheeseburgers?'' O'Neill recalled Bush saying. ``Card nodded. No one
laughed. He all but raced out of the room.''
In the first White House reaction to the interview and the book, spokesman
Scott McClellan said Monday, O'Neill's criticism ``appears to be more
about trying to justify personal views and opinions than it does about the
results we are achieving.''
BUSH BESTOWED NICKNAMES
At their first meeting after Bush took office, the president gave O'Neill
a nickname -- Pablo. Later he started calling the secretary ``Big O.''
O'Neill viewed this as ``a bully technique. 'I've given you a name. Now
you wear it'.''
At that first meeting and many others, Bush asked no questions. ``He
looked at O'Neill, not changing his expression, not letting on that he had
any reactions -- either positive or negative,'' Suskind writes. O'Neill
wondered if Bush did not know the questions to ask or did he know but not
want to hear the answers?
In the first National Security Council meeting he presided over on Jan.
30, 2001, Bush quickly decided to put Arab-Israeli peacemaking on the back
burner and concentrate on Iraq.
Bush described meeting then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon on a
December 1998 visit to Israel, when Bush himself was governor of Texas.
``Bush described meetingSharon...'We flew over the Palestinian camps.
Looked real bad down there. I don't see much we can do over there at this
point. I think it's time to pull out of that situation','' he said,
according to O'Neill.
Secretary of State Colin Powell warned the consequences of that could be
more bloodshed. ``Bush shrugged. 'Maybe that's the best way to get things
back in balance'.''
At that same meeting, CIA director George Tenet produced an aerial
photograph of a factory in Iraq that he said might be being used to
produce chemical or biological weapons.
O'Neill, who had run Alcoa Corporation, interjected: ``I've seen a lot of
factories around the world that look a lot like this one. What makes us
suspect that this one is producing chemical or biological agents for
weapons?''
'NO EVIDENCE'
Tenet cited circumstantial evidence but said there was no ``confirming
intelligence.'' And, O'Neill added, there never was such evidence, right
up to the decision to wage war on Iraq.
O'Neill asserts that with Bush unwilling or unable to read detailed
briefing papers, policy was decided on and controlled by Vice President
d#$% Cheney, supported by political advisers Karl Rove and Karen Hughes
and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- a ``Praetorian Guard''
that surrounded the president and kept alternative viewpoints out.
In O'Neill's eyes, Bush's ``lack of inquisitiveness or pertinent
experience'' meant he did not really care about long-established positions
of the U.S. government and was willing to abandon them without scruple or
regret.
``The president started from scratch and relied on advice of ideologues
without any honest brokers in sight,'' O'Neill said.
At Cabinet meetings, it was clear Bush had not read the memos O'Neill had
sent him, which he kept intentionally brief. In a one-on-one discussion
about Social Security, O'Neill said the President just ``checked out.''
Cabinet discussions were usually pre-scripted with the outcome determined
in advance. On one occasion when there was real discussion on tax policy,
Bush quickly became ``befuddled,'' according to O'Neill.
``If the president didn't connect in the first minute or two, it was a
lost cause,'' he said. @NYT
It is a bombbshell, another weapon of mass destruction being unloaded on the Republican
I won't be suprised that Mr. O'Neil might soon find himself in some serious issues involving the sate. You can never get away from the Republicans, they always come back to hunt you down 
.It is a must read book, if you like politics as it is played in the US. 
January 14, 2004
O'Neill Book Paints Devastating Portrait of Bush
By REUTERS
Filed at 0:33 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's
portrait of George W. Bush depicts a passive and superficial president
surrounded by right-wing ideologues who lacks the intellectual rigor or
even the curiosity to think through the effects of his policies.
O'Neill, who served from January 2001 until he was ousted in December
2002, made headlines over the weekend for his assertion that Bush began
laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq almost immediately after
taking office.
That was nine months before the administration began saying Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction presented an immediate threat to the United States in
the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
In detailed recollections of cabinet infighting and his own one-on-one
meetings with Bush, as recounted to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron
Suskind, O'Neill provides a rare insight into an unusually secretive
administration and glimpses of a president with sometimes unusual
priorities.
Suskind's book, ``The Price of Loyalty,'' for which O'Neill was the
principal source, went on sale on Tuesday.
The Treasury Department on Monday asked for an investigation into whether
a classified document was displayed during a CBS television interview with
O'Neill that aired Sunday.
In the book, O'Neill says the tone of his relationship with Bush was set
at their very first meeting where he was offered the job of Treasury
Secretary.
Instead of a detailed discussion, Bush was more interested in why the
cheeseburgers he had ordered were slow to appear. He interrupted the talk
to summon White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
``You're the chief of staff. You think you're up to getting us some
cheeseburgers?'' O'Neill recalled Bush saying. ``Card nodded. No one
laughed. He all but raced out of the room.''
In the first White House reaction to the interview and the book, spokesman
Scott McClellan said Monday, O'Neill's criticism ``appears to be more
about trying to justify personal views and opinions than it does about the
results we are achieving.''
BUSH BESTOWED NICKNAMES
At their first meeting after Bush took office, the president gave O'Neill
a nickname -- Pablo. Later he started calling the secretary ``Big O.''
O'Neill viewed this as ``a bully technique. 'I've given you a name. Now
you wear it'.''
At that first meeting and many others, Bush asked no questions. ``He
looked at O'Neill, not changing his expression, not letting on that he had
any reactions -- either positive or negative,'' Suskind writes. O'Neill
wondered if Bush did not know the questions to ask or did he know but not
want to hear the answers?
In the first National Security Council meeting he presided over on Jan.
30, 2001, Bush quickly decided to put Arab-Israeli peacemaking on the back
burner and concentrate on Iraq.
Bush described meeting then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon on a
December 1998 visit to Israel, when Bush himself was governor of Texas.
``Bush described meetingSharon...'We flew over the Palestinian camps.
Looked real bad down there. I don't see much we can do over there at this
point. I think it's time to pull out of that situation','' he said,
according to O'Neill.
Secretary of State Colin Powell warned the consequences of that could be
more bloodshed. ``Bush shrugged. 'Maybe that's the best way to get things
back in balance'.''
At that same meeting, CIA director George Tenet produced an aerial
photograph of a factory in Iraq that he said might be being used to
produce chemical or biological weapons.
O'Neill, who had run Alcoa Corporation, interjected: ``I've seen a lot of
factories around the world that look a lot like this one. What makes us
suspect that this one is producing chemical or biological agents for
weapons?''
'NO EVIDENCE'
Tenet cited circumstantial evidence but said there was no ``confirming
intelligence.'' And, O'Neill added, there never was such evidence, right
up to the decision to wage war on Iraq.
O'Neill asserts that with Bush unwilling or unable to read detailed
briefing papers, policy was decided on and controlled by Vice President
d#$% Cheney, supported by political advisers Karl Rove and Karen Hughes
and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- a ``Praetorian Guard''
that surrounded the president and kept alternative viewpoints out.
In O'Neill's eyes, Bush's ``lack of inquisitiveness or pertinent
experience'' meant he did not really care about long-established positions
of the U.S. government and was willing to abandon them without scruple or
regret.
``The president started from scratch and relied on advice of ideologues
without any honest brokers in sight,'' O'Neill said.
At Cabinet meetings, it was clear Bush had not read the memos O'Neill had
sent him, which he kept intentionally brief. In a one-on-one discussion
about Social Security, O'Neill said the President just ``checked out.''
Cabinet discussions were usually pre-scripted with the outcome determined
in advance. On one occasion when there was real discussion on tax policy,
Bush quickly became ``befuddled,'' according to O'Neill.
``If the president didn't connect in the first minute or two, it was a
lost cause,'' he said. @NYT
It is a bombbshell, another weapon of mass destruction being unloaded on the Republican
I won't be suprised that Mr. O'Neil might soon find himself in some serious issues involving the sate. You can never get away from the Republicans, they always come back to hunt you down .It is a must read book, if you like politics as it is played in the US. "Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach". "Nos nihil effisere non possimus"- "To us Nothing is impossible"
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cic old boy
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