Any help on taking this piece apart would be appreciated - I may be up for awahile but gotta get the kids to bed ... Thanks! ;-)
While never reported in the press that I'm aware of, during the Bush/Clinton meeting in the White House just before Bush's Inauguration, Clinton pressed Bush to keep the existing appeasement strategy toward North Korea in place.
Bush said no.
The reality of this book is that it demonstrates that O'Neill is the clueless one. The fact that he didn't understand what was going on is only a reflection of him.
"If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program."
For ammo, try these O'Neill threads.
1. "Hands on" micro-manager -- able to shoot straight through to the fringe of the subject.
2. "Consensus seeker" on decisions -- taking credit for the ones that turn out well, finding cover for the ones that don't.
3. Boot-licking to those above him, boot-kicking to those below him (a la General Weasley Clark).
4. And, maybe, even thought of the Treasury post as a sinecure, a reward of some sort, rather than a functional job -- with real responsibilities and accountability.
These traits are bass-ackwards and in direct conflict with Bush's management style. Oil and water -- they never would've understood each other. Frankly, I'm more shocked that he was hired than that he was fired.
Wasn't O'Neill like the 4th choice for this position, anyway? Seems to me they had trouble filling the Treasury post initially.
And, when you come right down to it, wasn't O'Neill not just wrong, but dead wrong, in his arguments about the impact of the tax cuts? Who needs a Treasury secretary that can be so wrong on such an important policy issue?
The definition of a gaffe in Washington is accidentally telling the truth. Ultimately, the best policy is to reduce the power of washington dc and that means tax cuts over all else.
"The bloodless way he was cut loose by his old chum shocked O'Neill, Suskind writes, but what came after was even more shocking. Cheney asked him to announce that it was O'Neill's decision to leave Washington to return to private life. O'Neill refused, saying "I'm too old to begin telling lies now."
Come on now, that was beyond nice of Cheney to make that offer befoe announcing he was FIRED. O'Neill is an ungrateful man who has resorted to petty BS.
We do more than any other country to help Africa. And it's not in the Treas Sec's perview to worry about foreign aid - we're in a recession O'Neill.
The nicest thing that can be said about O'Neill is he was George Bush's worst pick!
What this means to me is that he was not in harmony philosophically with the people he worked for. He makes it sound as if they were at fault for being who they are.
The decision to cut taxes was not really meant as a stimulus, I believe, although it was sold that way. The Dems were gearing up for an enormous increase in spending, and the tax cut was an attempt to end run the issue. Its hard to sell the idea of limited government, it was easier to just cut taxes which would make it difficult to launch the programs they wanted to launch.
Its ironic, that Bush has let himself be dragged into some of those very programs since then, but certainly the size of the programs has been limited not by philosophy unfortunately, but by deficits.
O'Neill, who sat on the National Security Council, says the focus was on Saddam from the early days of the Administration
This is good news. It was humiliating to have this guy shooting at our pilots day after day, and funneling money to the suicide bombers, and contracting Chinese companies to build ever better air-defense systems, and buying weaponry under the table from the French. The Turks would arrest the occasional smuggler carrying nuclear material over the mountains. Iraqi efforts to buy nuclear material may be news at the New York Times but it was public information every where else.
France, Russia, Germany, and China had all signed commercial agreements with Iraq in contravention to the sanctions, which meant that he had effectively bought off several members of the Security Council. The sanctions were on their way out, you remember the drum beat about millions of dead children due to the sanctions? The drumbeat was directly related to the contracts signed which would not be effective until sanctions were lifted.
Our choice was either to continue an endless war that was an open wound, continuously poisoning our relations with the Arab world, stand by and watch him emerge from containment with EU, Russian, and Chinese help, which would leave him untouchable, or else end it. It pleases me that Bush came into office determined to end it, and to end the endless shadowboxing of the Clinton years.
The arguments about WMD were wasted arguments; the point was that Saddam had bought the Security Council and sanctions were on their way out. You can't really argue that before the Security Council, so we talked about WMD instead.
People like to show pictures of Rumsfeld and Cheney shaking hands with Saddam. It never occurs to them that these guys might actually know something about Saddam that didn't see print in the Times.
"In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction,"
I'm not sure that falls within his job description.
The President was "clearly signing on to strong ideological positions that had not been fully thought through,"
Since O'Neill didn't agree with them, they must by definition by "not... fully thought through". Also, in O'Neill-speak, "ideological" means that O'Neill doesnt' agree. If he agreed, it would not be "ideological". O'Neill isn't ideological because he agrees with himself.
"The biggest difference between then and now... is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl (Rove), Dick (Cheney), Karen (Hughes) and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics. It's a huge distinction."
There is a reason why political people are in charge of policy. Democracy means that the policies that the technocrats design must still be sold to the public, which means that the people at large must be convinced. That is what the political process is about. A guy like O'Neill would be knowledgeable about financial matter, presumably, although clearly not in line philosophically with the Bush crowd. But he can't rule by decree. His policy has to be shaped so that it can be sold. Guys like Rove and the others are political animals, and it is their business to shape policies so that they can be presented persuasively. If the people can't be convinced, in a democracy, then you can't get any of your program through. You need guys like O'Neill and Rove, both.