The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, The White House, and the Education of Paul O’neill – Ron Suskind

The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, The White House, and the Education of Paul O’neill – Ron Suskind, Simon & Schuster (2004) 348pp. (S) ***

Whistleblowers come in all shapes and sizes. During Vietnam, there was Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers. More recently there was Scott Ritter, a former UNSCOM inspector in Iraq. Paul O’neill, the first high-level defection from within the Bush administration, describes a White House that is insular (“the president was caught in an echo chamber of is own making.”)(p.293) and contradictory, how the tax cuts and the preemption policy were on a “collision with reality” and each other.

As Secretary of the Treasury, what O’neill found most alarming was the deficit spending. Tax cuts year after year with no commensurate spending cuts is a recipe for fiscal disaster. What was even more disturbing to O’neill was how Bush and his cabinet went about the decision-making process. He describes Cheney’s m.o. as leaning on Congressional members to get his message through to dissident cabinet members, in effect using Senators and Representatives as fronts for the vice-president’s agenda. O’neill also describes how he, Christine Whitman, and Colin Powell were used as political window dressing to present a veneer of moderation, “as cover” to an ideologically driven administration. His chief grievance was how ideology constantly seemed to trump reasoned, methodical thought. Time and again this is the wall O’neill came up against – a blind ideology that had the same answer to every problem, regardless of its nature. The economy’s in a rut, tax cuts. The economy’s beginning to recover, more tax cuts. In reasoning too himself, O’neill finds himself opting for “philosophy” over “ideology,” where the former “ . . . can have a structured thought base”(p.292) where by the latter, “you already know the answer to everything.”(p.292)

Aside from the above, don’t look for anything terribly profound or earth shattering in this book. What O’neill must be applauded for, though, is his courageousness in being among the first to break the silence of criticism of the administration that 9/11 had brought over the country like a suffocating pillow. In leading the charge, he made it possible for others to find their voice and put to paper their own thoughts on a runaway administration. Being the first to set a precedent is never easy, and for this Paul O’neill must surely be commended.