Progress Report on O'Neill

O'NEILL

In response to O'Neill's interview on 60 Minutes, the Bush Administration is launching an investigation , claiming the former Treasury Secretary showed a classified document on screen. The problem for the White House is that, according to the WSJ , the document in question was not a Pentagon document, but a Commerce Department document that was part of Vice President Cheney's secret energy task force – not a war-planning memo. In fact, as Slate notes, the document "has long been available on the website " of Judicial Watch, the conservative group who sued to open up Cheney's task force. (See Daily Talking Points from American Progress for more analysis.)

SUDDENLY THERE IS URGENCY: While it took the White House just 24 hours to launch an investigation into O'Neill, it took them months to launch an inquiry into the leak of a CIA agent's name. As blogger Josh Marshall notes, "Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days. Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day. Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritical goons ... priceless."

NOT HELD TO SAME STANDARD: While the White House fulminates over its O'Neill investigation, there has never been an investigation into scores of classified leaks by the White House to Bob Woodward for his book "Bush At War." As Woodward acknowledges , he was given access to "notes taken during more than 50 National Security Council and other meetings" (which are classified) while also receiving "personal notes, memos, calendars, written internal chronologies, transcripts and other documents." The Providence Journal reported on 4/10/02 that Woodward said the President himself "often spoke candidly about classified information."

STILL AN HONEST MAN: While the right-wing attack machine targets former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, one thing has been made very clear by President Bush and Vice President Cheney: O'Neill is an honest man. In nominating O'Neill, Bush said "in a distinguished career, Paul has earned a reputation as a straight shooter ." When administering the Oath of Office, Cheney said, "Secretary O'Neill is a man of consistently sound judgment. He's a man of honor and decency who will make all Americans proud." After O'Neill commented about the growing size of the deficit in 2002, President Bush again said, "I find Paul O'Neill to be refreshingly candid . I appreciate his judgment." Even as O'Neill was leaving the White House, Bush said "Paul [is] one of the most fine, honorable, decent men I've ever served with. He can be proud for all he has done for his country." Maybe this is why so few conservatives are attacking what O'Neill actually had to say, and instead have resorted to attacking O'Neill personally.

A HISTORY OF INTIMIDATION: This is not the first time the White House has sought to punish those who tell the truth. As an American Progress backgrounder shows the White House summarily fired top economic adviser Larry Lindsey "when he told a newspaper that an Iraq war could cost $200 billion." Similarly, Mideast envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni was fired after he admitted post-war Iraq could be difficult. Gen. Eric Shinseki was criticized by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he admitted the army would need "several hundred thousand troops" to do the job in Iraq.

BOOK EXCERPTS: The WSJ [Wall Street Journal] has posted excerpts from Ron Suskind's book about O'Neill. Simon and Schuster is expected to post the entire first chapter on its website.

source: Progress Report

I did go buy the book, as I am interested to find out who the other people were that Suskind interviewed and what they had to say. Will let you know if anything looks interesting.

It's kind of interesting to me that a local bookstore didn't have the book, nor did the two people working there recognize it by name or reputation.

At Barnes and Nobel, where I got it, the clerk who helped me locate it said he heard something this morning on CNN about it and it sounded like Bush was being taken to task. Then he said, "And that doesn't bother me one bit." The woman at the counter who checked me out said, "This looks like it's going to be interesting," with a big smile.

Josh Marhsall's Talking Points are pretty good, all right.

Oh, they can do better than that, can't they?

CNN's headline story on the O'Neill story reads: "Cabinet members defend Bush from O'Neill"

And then, when you click through, it turns out the cabinet members are Don Evans (the president's Texas crony and political fixer) and John Snow (O'Neill's tepidly respected successor at Treasury).

None of the bigs? That's all? No Colin? We're Rummyless?

...So now the White House has pilloried Paul O’Neill as a sorry doofus and, by all appearances, launched a punitive investigation against him.

How about denying any of his claims or those in Suskind’s book?

Just a thought ...

And will O'Neill go the way of John DiIulio and Nick Smith? Where's the document they want him to sign? And who writes them?

From the archives, DiIulio's Kamenev moment : "John DiIulio agrees that his criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples. He sincerely apologizes and is deeply remorseful."

Yikes, I'd hate to make enemies out of these guys. Or, wait ...

If you don't remember DiIulio - click here.

And Nick Smith - click here and here.

...or do what you want...you will anyway...