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.

[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.

[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.