Krugman: The Awful Truth (Paul O' Neill)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/13/opinion/13KRUG.html

People are saying terrible things about George Bush. They say that his officials weren't sincere about pledges to balance the budget. They say that the planning for an invasion of Iraq began seven months before 9/11, that there was never any good evidence that Iraq was a threat and that the war actually undermined the fight against terrorism.

But these irrational Bush haters are body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freaks who should go back where they came from: the executive offices of Alcoa, and the halls of the Army War College.

I was one of the few commentators who didn't celebrate Paul O'Neill's appointment as Treasury secretary. And I couldn't understand why, if Mr. O'Neill was the principled man his friends described, he didn't resign early from an administration that was clearly anything but honest.

But now he's showing the courage I missed back then, by giving us an invaluable, scathing insider's picture of the Bush administration.

n/t

Spread it around.

As usual Krugman is on the mark. The man has courage!

But I am not so sure that O'Neill is showing courage now, so much as taking a little revenge... and gaining notoriety ... not to mention some fat paydays.

He says:

"Mr. Suskind's book . . . will dismay those who still want to believe that our leaders are wise and good."

It has been my experience these past two years that those who want to believe that our leaders are wise and good will continue to so believe no matter how much evidence is unearthed.

If there is to be a "straw that breaks the camel's back" that turns the populace against the Bush II regime, let's hope it comes soon.

This is what some are asking. Since Cheney et al were talking about "post Saddam" as early as February 2001, yet O'Neill stayed until the end of 2002.

I think that it was not Iraq that bothered him, but the second tax cut that, as the money man, he could see was going to increase the deficit. And then it was Cheney's comment that, hey, Reagan showed that no one cared about the deficit.

media/corporate executives who knew the tax policies and pre-emptive wars were extradoridarily damaging to this Republic, yet they stayed loyal to the man rather than to our Constitution, our nation, we the people.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

...
"Ron Suskind's new book "The Price of Loyalty" is based largely on interviews with and materials supplied by Mr. O'Neill. It portrays an administration in which political considerations — satisfying "the base" — trump policy analysis on every issue, from tax cuts to international trade policy and global warming. The money quote may be Dick Cheney's blithe declaration that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." But there are many other revelations.
...
The question is whether this book will open the eyes of those who think that anyone who criticizes the tax cuts is a wild-eyed leftist, and that anyone who says the administration hyped the threat from Iraq is a conspiracy theorist.

The point is that the credentials of the critics just keep getting better. How can Howard Dean's assertion that the capture of Saddam hasn't made us safer be dismissed as bizarre, when a report published by the Army War College says that the war in Iraq was a "detour" that undermined the fight against terror? How can charges by Wesley Clark and others that the administration was looking for an excuse to invade Iraq be dismissed as paranoid in the light of Mr. O'Neill's revelations?"
...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/13/opinion/13KRUG.html

And in the New York market no less, now if the Times would just hire Helen Thomas. :nuke:

Krugman never lets me down, truly a lonely voice in the wilderness.

The same paper can employee MoDo the Ho...

Another home run for Krugman!

I read Kooky first, then reassure myself that the whole world hasn't gone mad by reading Krugman.