Guardian Profile: Paul O'Neill

[kskiska]

The new memoirs of George Bush's ex-treasury secretary have hurt the president's image, and the imminent release of his internet archive will not help. Why did the White House ever hire a successful troublemaker?

In retrospect, the unceremonious firing of Paul O'Neill in December 2002 made perfect sense. It is rather his hiring two years earlier that remains one of the great mysteries of the Bush administration.

No one, least of all Mr O'Neill himself, seems to understand why an old-fashioned moderate Republican pragmatist with a reputation for disarming bluntness and unpredictable views was given one of the top jobs in a ideological and radical cabinet obsessed with secrecy, discipline and loyalty.

(snip)

Nevertheless, the Bush team appears to have gone to great lengths at the beginning to recruit the elderly businessman. As soon as the supreme court had handed victory to George Bush by a one-vote margin in December 2000, the president elect's kingmaker, Dick Cheney, began stalking Mr O'Neill by telephone with an offer he could not refuse.

After 13 years at the aluminium corporation, Alcoa, Mr O'Neill was a few days away from retirement and was planning a trip along America's backroads in a Bentley with his wife, Nancy. She was was furious, but he was ultimately won over by the flattery from his old friend.

By his own account, Mr O'Neill actually warned the president-elect and his deputy not to hire him. When he was flown in for a secret meeting in a Washington hotel, he took a list of his past pronouncements that could prove embarrassing to a conservative administration.

He had called for a petrol tax, and worse still, he believed global warming to be a real threat. But in the Washington hotel room, the book suggests, Mr Bush was not listening. Mr O'Neill was telling a long anecdote about an encounter with an environmental pressure group when Mr Bush held up his hand and asked: "Where's lunch?". The president then upbraided his chief of staff for failing to produce a cheeseburger on time.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1124382,00.html

[NJCher]

1. Great article:

Lawrence Lindsay is a "toadying courtier." How apropos!

And the documents will be on the Internet in two weeks. What fun we will have then. I can hardly wait!


Cher

[saline]

2. excellent read...

Thanks for pointing it out. I hate to admit it because he's a republican but I have a lot of respect for O'Neill over this and his trip to Africa. In a world of fascist ideologues he held his own course and spoke his own mind. Thank you Paul for telling the truth, we all know what a dangerous action that can be at this point in history.