Rage of a Relic. Paul O'Neill is angry that the world has passed him by.

Wall Street Journal ^ | Monday, January 12, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST | John Fund

[.cnI redruM]

I once had dinner with Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury secretary who is now making headlines with a scathing portrayal of his days in the Bush administration prior to his firing in December 2002. Bush critics will hail Mr. O'Neill as a truth-teller, White House aides are already calling him a back-stabber. In fact, Mr. O'Neill is a relic. The man I broke bread with was clearly a product of the Nixon and Ford administrations, in which he had served, and simply hadn't adapted to the post-Reagan Republican Party.

[.cnI redruM]

I read this article and ask myself. Why was this man ever in a Republican administration? He sounds like Howard Dean on a bloody day?

[kevao]

Who's Paul O'Neill?

[.cnI redruM]

Some guy who's mad that life just passed him by. I think he played OF for The Reds and The Yanks.

[BrooklynGOP]

Didn't he play Al Bundy?

[BrooklynGOP]

Didn't he play Al Bundy?

[Poohbah]

I read this article and ask myself. Why was this man ever in a Republican administration?

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."

[mewzilla]

It now turns out Mr. O'Neill has talked nearly daily for the last year with Mr. Suskind, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, who has now written a new explosive book on President Bush's first term.

O'Neill didn't let the grass grow, did he? And he left loaded for bear. He also, according to FNC this morning, approached Suskind, not the other way around.

[.cnI redruM]

True enough.

[.cnI redruM]

No, he's not a shrinking violet. It's a shame Bush ever hired this dorkmiester in the first place.

[axel f]

Was he the one who cried during his Senate confirmation process?

[.cnI redruM]

We should have cried when he was confirmed.

[mewzilla]

Forget shrinking violet. I'm not sure this guy had time to get mad. It was like he was out one day and calling Suskind the next. That to me sounds like something a bit more premeditated. And what's with those thousands of pages of docs? Did he just happen to have them laying around? Or was he collecting them for a reason...?

[OldFriend]

Rather pitiful ending for a man who was credited for saving Alcoa. He had admirable accomplishments in industry but chose to leave as his legacy, a whining, puke of a rant about global warming, and the mean ole president who didn't share his idiocyncracies..

[mondonico]

Lid Blown Off O'Neill/Suskind Hoax
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1056442/posts

[mewzilla]

His legacy should include a bit more than that if he went about disseminating classified info.

[.cnI redruM]

Joe Wilson redux, maybe?

[mewzilla]

Funny you should mention Mr. Wilson. Did you know that Joe Wilson and Ron Suskind apparently have something in common: a profound dislike for Karl Rove.

[Inspectorette]

IIRC, he and Sen. "Sheets" Byrd got into a p***ing contest about which one of them grew up poorer, and O'Neill appeared to be nearly in tears.

[axel f]

I'm not trying to make fun of him for crying. I just remember being amazed how thin-skinned he seemed to be, especially after what all John Ashcroft had just gone through a few weeks before.

[OldFriend]

Seemingly the page marked SECRET that was shown on TV was a document made public by Cheney's office.

One wonders if O'Neil is suffering from mad ego's disease!

[mewzilla]

Or possibly something a bit more venal...

[ReleaseTheHounds]

What a politically tone-deaf, inarticulate, stupid, uneducated, ill-informed, wrong-about-everything individual. When Bush made his cabinet appointments, this one had me shaking my head from the get-go. And then when he started under-mining tax-cuts, you knew he was off the reservation and should be confined on a funny farm. Why President Bush didn't demand his resignation within months of the appointment (other than the obvious embarrassment from acknowledging such a huge mistake) always concerned me. Then, when he was pushed out, it was obvious that he STILL didn't have a clue... But, oh so predictable, here come Demos -- who ridiculed him from the outset -- now paying their respects and acknowledging his great wisdom.

If ever there was needed a case study in why RINOS should be targeted and eliminated from positions in the Government, Paul O'Neil has just risen to the top of the heap. Way to go, Paul... your legacy is now assured.

[pogo101]

We fans of the Big (1970s) and Little (early 90s) Red Machines can tell you that Paul O'Neill was always a big lefty.

[TonyRo76]

Paul O'Neill

This bozo was a relic from two of the worst Republican administrations in U.S. history: Nixon and Ford. The fact he supported (and has never repudiated) Nixon's heavy-handed government intrusion in the economy was enough to earn my distrust. His opposition to tax cuts made me genuinely dislike him. And fretting about “how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society”??? That makes him sound just like any other do-gooder socialist!

Oh, and then there was this precious moment...

Maybe now he can get a stint as Howard Dean's running mate.

[jpl]

O'Neill is a classic northeastern Rockefeller Republican. As Ann Coulter correctly pointed out in her book, he's the type of guy who's a Republican solely because he was raised in the country club set to view Democrats as the dirty working class.

[Carolinamom]

The natives in that picture are NOT dressed in native costume as Bono and O'Neil are. The natives are laughing. Wonder why. LOL

[Digger]

Time magazine reports that he considered himself, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman and Secretary of State Colin Powell to be "three beleaguered souls . . . who shared a more nonideological approach

This is one item I would agree with him. Powell has become either neutered or enlightened, who know which but these three along with Minnow Mineta were bad picks & they have hurt his administration.

[bastantebueno55]

"Who's Paul O'Neill?"

Didn't he run a gas station down in St. Louis? Oh, no, that was Gandhi. O'Neill ran a gas station in Pittsburgh.

ROFL

[elbucko]

Maybe now he can get a stint as Howard Dean's running mate.

Al Sharpton just might want O'Neil first, after this photo.

[.cnI redruM]

This man is truly pathetic.

[mewzilla]

And methinks he's gonna have some 'splainin' to do...

[.cnI redruM]

If you mean the Bono wannabe. Oh Yeah....

http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/12/news/economy/oneill_probe/index.htm?cnn=yes

[talleyman]

Bump. I'm sure Rockefeller will demand an investigation into the leaking of these documents...

[mombonn]

I was impressed by his candor but not by his wisdom.

Great line.

[Republican Wildcat]

What the heck are they doing?

[Sonny M]

Why was this man ever in a Republican administration?

Its actually says why in the article, but its been mentioned numerious times before. He was close friends with Dick Cheney, he's friends with Donald Rumsfeld (who, believe it or not, is pretty moderate with the exception of foreign policy) and he is very close with Alan Greenspan.

Basically he was brought in because he was close to Greenspan and Cheney had worked with him and they had become friends.

[Sonny M]

As Ann Coulter correctly pointed out in her book, he's the type of guy who's a Republican solely because he was raised in the country club set to view Democrats as the dirty working class.

O'Neill actually grew up pretty poor and was working class, he's one of those self made deals. The reason he's a republican, was that he was a old school guy who followed the type of thinking that you would see in say the old Ike administration, and the type of thinking that was there.

He's a classic keynesian, as was Nixon and Ford and Bush sr. He's more in line with the thinking of the Ike administration in regards to government and spending. Supply side economics to him is way to radical.

[TonyRo76]

What the heck are they doing?

Wandering around Africa in their pajamas. (At least that's one theory ;-)

[TonyRo76]

Al Sharpton just might want O'Neil first...

Lol...very true!

[TonyRo76]

The natives are laughing. Wonder why. LOL

I hear ya! Bono & O'Neill (the duo that's gonna replace U2?) look ridiculous in those get-ups. The natives just look normal.

[JesseHousman]

...and simply hadn't adapted to the post-Reagan Republican Party.

When this moron toured Africa with Bono he was intellectually bankrupt as far as I was concerned.

That being said, the above excerpted quote applies to me as well. Only fools have adapted to the Republican Party of today! This jerk should have fit in perfectly!

[JesseHousman]

"I do."

[Judith Anne]

Honestly, I think he's senile, and that's sad...President Bush, with his mild response, is simply being kind to a senile old man.

[.cnI redruM]

I'm not too sure I've adapted myself. Don't even mention that evil prescription drug benefit. YECH!