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Summary: A frightening view from a White House insider
Review: Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter/author Ron Suskind has a genuine gift for listening as well as for for writing. His subjects trust him (no small thing!) enough to give him insight into their own difficult situations. Their unforced admissions then become ours to analyze--and to haunt us.Before this book was published, Suskind was perhaps best known on the political front for his lengthy interviews with John DiIulio Jr., whose nuanced, detailed, and publicly disseminated disenchantment with his position as head of George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives created a tsunami of public outcry, both from the administration's true believers and from those who distrust rubber-stamping the moniker "faith-based" upon any federally funded program. In this disturbing, well-researched book, Suskind once again puts his reporting skills to fine use in exploring Paul O'Neill's tenure in the administration. What "loyalty" demands--too often at the expense of truthful disclosure--in the Bush II Cabinet is damning enough. But perhaps most disturbing is O'Neill's remark that he is "old and rich. What can [BushCo] do to me?" For the millions of Americans who do not enjoy O'Neill's economic and professional safety net, there remains much, much more that the current administration can "do to" us. Our fear, apprehension, and outrage are more than justified given the damage to our country's economy, safety, and global future inflicted during the past three years. Kudos to Suskind and O'Neill for their courage and clarity. And for those knee-jerk one-star Amazon "reviewers" who think that George W. Bush can do no wrong--read this book anyway. You just might learn something.
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Summary: Eye-Opener, but not quite enough revealed
Review: There are many readers of this book who suspected all along that our President was being manipulated by his inner corps of neocons, idealogues, etc. This book helped verify those suspicions, and filled in the blanks. I also learned a lot about how the Administration runs, or should run. Still, I am waiting for Karen Hughes or Mary Matalin to write the definitive expose of Bush, Cheney et al. Come on, ladies....do your Country a real service!
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Summary: Seems like Dick Cheney lives in Alaska now
Review: I'm not certain if the reviewer from Alaska was Rummy or Cheney. Sure sounds like one of then though.
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Summary: O'Niel is a very bitter man
Review: Paul O'Niel is obviously a very bitter man. O'Niel was unqualified for his job and justifiably removed. His comments against Pres. Bush are way off base and in watching him on tv last week, I noticed that he made a total fool out of himself and tried to lie his way out of his outrageous comments.I'm curious as to who is really behind this book.O'Niel went about this the wrong way.
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Summary: The truth may hurt, but it's still the truth...
Review: Look at the reviews for this book. Do you notice anything
odd? All of the 3-5 star reviews discuss the book with clarity and intelligence, seeming to at least make an attempt at something approaching adult, informed, intellectual debate. Contrast this to to the 1 star reviews (are there any 2 star reviews?). They are all from "a reader" and amount to nothing more than rants and temper tantrums. A couple of them even resort to the ridiculous use of the word "treason." Treason is defined as a "violation of allegiance toward one's country." One of "a reader's" arguments for accusing Paul O'Neill of treason is that he dares to question the president. First of all, I don't think anyone who's actually read Mr. Suskind's book will come to the conclusion that O'Neill is questioning the president; he's simply telling us how things work in the Bush White House, and he has 19,000 government documents to back up his story. By its very definition, the truth can never be treason. One version of "a reader" even goes so far as to say that the book is treason becasue it paints Bush in a negative light and that's bad because he was our president during the "9/11 attacks by Saddam Hussein." I rest my case on that point. And about those 19,000 documents: "a reader" also accuses O'Neill of getting away with stealing them. Again, if you had actually read the book, you would have seen that O'Neill submitted a request to the Treasury Dept. for all documents from his term as Treasury Secretary that it was legal for him to have. The Treasury Department supplied those 19,000 documents to him...he didn't "get away" with anything. So, we have a former administration insider telling what it was like on the inside and backing it up with 19,000 government documents supplied to him by said administration...treason? Hardly. The truth? The evidence certainly seems to indicate as much...especially since the Bush administration itself was the source of the evidence.
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Summary: Truth or Fiction? Time Will Tell.
Review: Having seen Paul O'Neill interviewed about this book on 60 Minutes and The Newshour, I was not surprised by a lot of The Price of Loyalty. But there were a few nuggets that caught my attention. Suskind's (O'Neill's?) description of how Christine Whitman was treated as EPA Administrator left me wondering how she managed to stay on as long as she did. And the first meeting of the National Security Council, where the Israel-Palestinian conflict was summarily dismissed, was gripping. This book is a pretty quick read, and I'm not sure how much to take with a grain of salt. Time will tell.
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Summary: A blind man among deaf people? How true!
Review: Considering how the economy has fallen down into the toilet and how this President fails to listen to anybody, I agree that he is like a blind man among deaf people. Price of Loyalty by Paul O'Niel is very revealing and a must read for anyone who truely loves this country. Remember, O'Niel was an insider who personally witnessed many things that this adminstration would love to keep quiet.
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Summary: A Fair and Balanced History
Review: The surprises in this first book by a Bush II insider come unannounced: one is the long friendship between Paul O'Neill and Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and their mutual concern over Bush's reckless economic policies. Another is Bush's sneering use of nicknames ("Balloonfoot" for Colin Powell, "Big O" for O'Neill). Paul O'Neill held the most important cabinet position next to State. For two years he attended one-on-one weekly meetings with the president, and attended meetings of the National Security Council. His meticulous record-keeping and John Dean-like near-perfect memory add to the persuasiveness of Suskind's fair and balanced presentation. The one suggestion I would have for readers unacquainted with the subject is to read up on macroeconomics. After all, Treasury is all about monetary and fiscal policy, economic trends, the current account deficit, and unemployment. We knew before this book came out about the controlling hand of Dick Cheney, hidden in a glove of silence; the overwhelming desire for secrecy inside the White House in an almost military "need to know" atmosphere; the demand that all administration hires be personally loyal to Bush and "stay on message"; and the slavish attention paid to big political contributors and corporate lobbyists. What O'Neill adds is the portrayal of Bush as virtually an empty suit lacking leadership qualities, a man who knows how to carry a grudge. O'Neill exposes the Iraq war for what it was: a neocon goal far earlier than 9/11. And he confirms what many readers have come to believe about the administration: that everything--everything, is political
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Summary: One of the more important books of our time
Review: Lost in all the hoopla surrounding this book is the fact that it is a work of the foremost importance, not merely for the disturbing insider glimpses it offers into the working of the Bush White House, but because this will be one of the starting places for all future writing about the Bush administration. No biographer of Bush or any other administration member, and no analyst of any aspect of the policy or political decisions of the administration will be able to ignore, not just because of the testimony of O'Neill, but the extraordinary documentation that forms the basis for the book. Suskind based the book on extensive interviews with Paul O'Neill, some 19,000 documents that Suskind was given by the Treasury Department (soon to be posted on www.ronsuskind.com), and also numerous interviews with other members of the Bush administration or government departments. Largely because the latter individuals are still in government or because they have too much to lose by speaking on the record, it is impossible to say for certain who else spoke with Suskind, though it seems pretty obvious that two who did were Alan Greenspan (who quite clearly considers the current administration a bit of a tragedy) and Christine Todd Whitman. It also seems likely that either Colin Powell or more likely some of his aides (with Powell's blessing) spoke with Suskind as well. Whoever spoke with Suskind, the book has the aroma of truth from beginning to end. O'Neill was able to go on record because while others can't afford to undertake such a battle, as he puts it, "I'm an old guy, and rich. So there's nothing they can do to hurt me." Interestingly, of the various complaints those on the Right are making about the book, few seem to revolve around whether O'Neill is being truthful. I hear more about his being "disgruntled" or being a traitor. Let's address those two concerns briefly. First, if one reads the book, it becomes patently obvious that Paul O'Neill is not disgruntled because he was fired, but was fired because he was disgruntled. This comes out in the title of the book, which comes from a quote from Hannah Arendt: "Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise." O'Neill's problem, along with Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell, is that he was not able to empty his loyalty of content. Ultimately, his loyalty was with the honest assessment of facts and data, and these, as he sifted through them, clashed with proposals put forward by the Bush administration. He felt that a huge trillion dollar tax cut without triggers to guard against the kind of downturn in the economy that we have seen since 2000 was irresponsible, and he felt that a second tax cut would not only no provide stimulus, but would help create a long term economic catastrophe for the United States. Not only did the wrongly enacted first tax cut leave the nation at risk and the second one weaken the foundations of the American economy, it kept Bush from being able to address crucial questions such as Social Security reform, essential with the Baby Boomers set to start retiring in 2010. Paul O'Neill was unquestionably disgruntled, but to say this book is a product of that disgruntlement is putting the cart before the horse. Second, the documents that O'Neill gave to Suskind were 19,000 documents that the Treasury Department gave to O'Neill on DVDs. O'Neill requested that he be provided, as all departmental heads are entitled to, copies of all nonclassified documents touching upon his administration. A few weeks after he made the request and department officials vetted the documents, he was presented with the discs, which he then passed on to Suskind, which violated no laws. It is possible that someone in the Treasury Department made an error, but clearly O'Neill cannot be faulted for this. Furthermore, the document that appeared on 60 MINUTES with the words "Top Secret" stamped on it, was merely the cover sheet of a classified report. The report itself was not included, only the cover sheet. The portrait of the Bush administration that Suskind paints using the evidence from all his sources is a chilling one. Although others, such as the highly respected John DiIulio (who resigned as head of the Faith Based Initiative because the White House seemed to have no policy apparatus, but was completely controlled by political concerns, by what he famously termed the "Mayberry Machiavellis") have presented images of this as an administration driven by ideological and political, and not policy, concerns, O'Neill fleshes this out to an especially vivid degree. Unlike O'Neill and people like Alan Greenspan, who want to root policy in data and information and research, O'Neill portrays an administration in which decisions are made in the absence of all three. O'Neill also adds depth to the frequent claims that the Bush administration is far more concerned with business concerns and the needs of the wealthy (in Bush terminology, "the entrepreneurial class") than with working class Americans. The sections dealing with the obsession with dethroning Saddam Hussein have received a great deal of attention in the press, but I was personally more disturbed with the sections that show the process in George W. Bush going back on his campaign pledge to work hard to reduce green house emissions. But no matter what issue is under discussion, there is in O'Neill's accounts the same process at work: a refusal to engage in hard research and fact assessment, but instead to jump immediately to the "how" of an issue, ignoring or leaping over the "why." Worse of all, O'Neill verifies the account of DiIulio and others of a White House driven by ill-informed ideologues, headed by a president is clearly well over his head. No American can really afford not to read this book. If every voter were to read this book before going to the polls in November, George W. Bush would not have a prayer at being elected. But I'm afraid that too many of his supporters are also willfully ill-informed ideologues. But if he is reelected, don't blame Ron Suskind and Paul O'Neill. They have warned you.
Rating:
Summary: Does not live up to its expectations...
Review: Regardless of what political affiliation one holds, the book is overrated. All the publicity in the press might persude lots of people to buy it and then leave them looking for more. Common sense tells us not to trust any republican government (so far to my affiliation), nothing in the book suprised me. Expected more - a lot more. Very disappointing. Can't say much more about the contents, it's autobiographical, so it's basically subjective. I am going so far as to say that I am sorry I spend any amount of money on it.
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