January 11, 2004 [LINK]
O'Neill "tattles" on Bush
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, famed for his blunt, impolitic style of speaking, has written a book of memoirs in which he criticizes President Bush's detachment from policy making, describing Bush cabinet meetings as "a blind man speaking in a room full of deaf people." A bit overstated perhaps, but such a hands-off managerial approach is a well-known weakness of Bush II. It should be noted, however, that similar criticisms were often voiced of President Reagan, whose two terms in office were -- on the whole -- extremely successful. As reported in today's Washington Post, O'Neill also disclosed that Bush's team was intent on removing Saddam Hussein from the very beginning of his term, several months before 9/11. That's quite probable as well, and indeed that goal was established as official U.S. government policy during the Clinton administration (!) under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.
There was a lot of talk about blogs on NBC's "Meet the Press" this morning, especially as they are being used by some of the Democratic presidential candidates. In a roundtable, Tim Russert brought up the accusation that Wesley Clark has been ripping off the style, and even some of the content, of Howard Dean's Web site, which is credited with raking in millions of dollars in campaign donations.