Replies

I decided to go ahead and transcribe what Brit Hume had to say regarding O'Neill today, since I've received more requests for details. Here is the transcript I just made from excerpts of my videotape of the program:

Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace
1-11-2004 - Second half hour of the program.

Chris Wallace (after reading some Paul O'Neill quotes), asks Brit Hume this question:

"Brit, what is all this -- and you know we're gonna hear a lot more -- what does all this tell you about President Bush, and what does it tell you about Paul O'Neill?"

Brit Hume: "It tells you very little, I think, about President Bush, but it tells you a great deal about Paul O'Neill who has also said that if these passages that you cited, and I suppose from others as well from the book, are all that anybody takes away from it, he will be extremely disappointed.

And what in the world could he possibly expect having written this highly critical explosive stuff about a president with whose policies he never really agreed, which was the main problem he had. He was a terrible salesman for the president's tax cut plan, which he said on Capitol Hill repeatedly, 'wouldn't do any harm' - THAT was his pitch for it.

He didn't have a good round at the Treasury Department, I don't think, on anybody's scorecard, and was ousted probably later than perhaps he needed to be. He was very bitter, remained so, and it comes through in this book. He is also a guy, as you can tell from his comments, what people take away from it, who clearly doesn't get it."

Mara Laisson: (sp?) NPR-type comments.

Bill Kristol comments, the gist of which is: "The talk about 'verbatim transcripts' from cabinet meetings is BS." And "Of course we had a plan for regime change in Iraq, we had one three years before the Bush Administration took office".

Juan Williams: NPR-type comments.

Brit Hume: "Right. Stick to Mara's point that this will stoke the fires of people who aren't going to vote for Bush anyway and not anybody else.

It is striking, and one thing I think the Democrats will not pick up on, is this idea that there was 'a secret plan' for post-Saddam Iraq. Because one of the primary lines of attack on the president from the Democrats these days, is that 'he had no plan for post-war Iraq, and now it turns out he had one from the day he set foot in ofice. So I assume we're gonna hear less about that accusation from the Democrats on that."

Juan Williams, the gist of his comments: "O'Neil said that Cheney called him and said 'the president has made some changes, and you're part of the changes - you're out. I'm not going to lie about it, I'm too old to start lying now.'"

Brit Hume: "One point about that. Paul O'Neill started talking - even before he was confirmed - about how HE was not going to allow anyone to tell HIM what to say and that HE was too old to start doing that now, and that HE, from the beginning, thought that HIS tenure in office was about HIM, and what HE thought HE wanted to do, and what policies HE had. And it was very clear that he didn't really support all the policies that he was trying to sell - which is the principal job of a treasury secretary in any and all administrations - is to do that job.

He didn't believe in it. He believed mainly in HIMSELF, and he had never gotten past that."

Mara comments - backing Brit up quoting O'Neill as saying, 'Nobody can tell me what to say.' His tenure was marked by a lot of candor.."

Brit [interrupting]: "[You mean] a lot of gaffs."

Chris Wallace then changes the subject to President Bush's plans to renew the space program.

End of transcript.