"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."-- Louis Brandeis, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court, 1913
The White House of George W. Bush, as described by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill--former CEO of Alcoa Inc.--is a world out of kilter, a study of politics over policy, of a Presidency woefully out of touch with people, and painfully neglectful of it constitutional mandates. Policy decisions are determined not by carefully weighing the subtle complexity of the issue's and thoughtful debate; rather, they're dictated by a small cadre of conservative ideologues and political advisors, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Political Advisors Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, all of whom operate outside the scrutiny of top cabinet officials.
President Bush despite his folksy deportment, or perhaps because of it, is according to O'Neill's observations, not a fully engaged administrator but an enigma. A poker-faced man who is, at best, is guarded, but at worst, is regrettably uncurious, unintelligent and a mere puppet, dancing as it were, at the behest of his Republican handlers.
Written in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning author, journalist, and documentarian Ron Suskind, O'Neill provided extensive documentation including work schedules with 7,630 entries and a set of 19,000 documents that featured memoranda to the President, thank-you notes, meeting minutes, and voluminous reports. Paul O'Neill has an interesting pedigree. A well respected and learned economist from the days of Nixon and Ford, at the behest of Cheney he agreed to return to a Washington (from retirement) that is inestimably more cutthroat, partisan and increasingly dysfunctional.
The result of O'Neill's first hand retelling of his two years at the helm of Treasury is "The Price of Loyalty", a fascinating albeit frightening glance inside the meeting rooms, the in-boxes, and the minds of the now infamously guarded Bush administration. As one might expect the majority of the book, as told by the former Treasury Secretary, revolves around economics. But even the average American, not normally stimulated by the intricacies tax code, and economic & monetary policy, will be fascinated--as I was--by the highly charged, lighting-quick intellects of O'Neill and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan as they gather for regular policy setting breakfasts. The met in an attempt to chart a course of sanity for economic policy within the Bush Administration, and tried to stave off, or at least moderate the administration rush into ill-conceived tax cuts.
One might be given to conclude that a fair amount of the book is about circumstances O'Neill only had second-hand knowledge of, or could at best only postulate. But he's close enough to halls of federal power to know that there is something disturbing going on within the Bush administration's power structure. And he was close enough to make certain revelatory assertions, the most revealing of which is that Saddam Hussein was targeted for removal not in the aftermath of 9/11, but soon after Bush took office.
The dramatic, unfolding narrative within the pages of "The Price of Loyalty" is like no other book that has been written (or that I have read) about the Bush presidency. O'Neill is the only member of Bush's innermost circle to leave (Richard Clarke notwithstanding) and then to agree to speak frankly about what has really been happening inside the White House. At its core "The Price of Loyalty" is a candid assessment of former O'Neill's, two years as the administration's top economic official, a principal of the National Security Council, and a sometimes tutor to the new and largely ignorant President.
O'Neill's account of the enigmatic Bush Administration is supported by Suskind's interviews with many participants in the administration, by transcripts of meetings, and by capacious documents that cover most areas of domestic and foreign policy. Most of these were supplied, as I mentioned above, by O'Neill himself. The resulting tome is a sometimes dry, but oftentimes riveting exposé of a President woefully out of touch with the people he was elected to govern, and it serves as an unparalleled look into an ongoing presidency.
New York Times Book Reviewer- Michael Tomasky had this to say about the book, "[T]he news-cycle controversies have obscured the book's central, and important, thesis....What enriches THE PRICE OF LOYALTY, aside form the accretion of persuasive detail, is its assertion that in this administration, a time-honored notion of public service has been deeply corrupted....[W]hether O'Neill was a brilliant Treasury secretary or a mediocre one, he did regard the public trust as a sacred matter, and the case THE PRICE OF LOYALTY makes about the debasement of the policy process is a strong one."
I must say that I agree with that Tomasky's analysis. Any American with a notion to know what is going on inside their government should read the "The Price of Loyalty". Republicans of course will shy away calling the book "Bush Bashing," but any citizen interesting the in well being of the nation should give it a read. Democracy depends on an informed citizenry who put country above Party, in order to survive. Though a lifelong Republican, Paul O'Neill put his country above his Party, so that we the average American could understand the depths to which our government is no longer answerable to We The People.
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Top reviews from other countries
Quasimodo
Secrets of the George W. Bush White House revealed.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2013BAC
Fascinating, scarey, essential reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2004三樹
Be sure to read O'Neill's book, if you have not.
Reviewed in Japan on February 15, 2004
