Paul O'Neill on 60 min.

[Chewbacca]

Seems we have two different issues here. No need to get them confuddled just yet.

One is Paul O'Neill, a former Secretary Of The Treasury with information from an inside perspective. Information that can indeed chnage and/or frame issues like the different rationals behind the War. Issues like the strange jobless economy that is sucking up deficit like a cokehead in the 70s. Important issues eh? I'll take the information with a grain of salt for bias, like any source of information.

Two is the probe into the possible showing of a secret document on the 60 minutes show.

Here is the Reuters story on the secret document probe.

Link
*********************'
Treasury Seeks Probe Into Papers Taken by O'Neill
Mon January 12, 2004 04:47 PM ET

By Jonathan Nicholson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury requested a probe on Monday of how a possibly secret document appeared in a televised interview of Paul O'Neill, as a book criticizing the Bush administration that uses material supplied by the ex-Treasury secretary hits the stores.

In the book about his term as Treasury chief, O'Neill, who left the job in December 2002 in a shake-up of President Bush's economic team, criticized White House policies and provided author Ron Suskind with thousands of administration documents.

O'Neill said the Bush administration had been looking for a justification to oust President Saddam Hussein since early 2001, long before the Sept. 11 attacks that year.

Nichols did not specify the topic of the specific document that led to the decision to ask the Inspector General's office to look into it.

"It's based on the (CBS program) '60 Minutes' segment, and I'll be even more clear -- the document as shown on '60 Minutes' that said 'secret,"' Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols told reporters at a weekly briefing.

Nichols said the probe will focus on how possibly classified information appeared on a television interview as one of O'Neill's papers.

According to a summary of the segment on CBS's web site, Suskind said one of the briefing materials O'Neill had included a paper marked "secret" that was titled "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq."

"We're asking them to simply look into the '60 Minutes' segment and then take appropriate steps, if necessary," Nichols said. However, he said the legal threshold for asking for an inquiry was "very low."

Asked if seeking the probe may look vindictive, Nichols said, "We don't view it in that way."

[skywalker]

I believe O'Neill is not the author of the book. The Price of Loyalty, was written by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.


Mark

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: His argument will not be attacked but he personally will be.

I bet he will portrayed as a administration outsider who never quite fit in and disagreed with the rest of the adminstration. He will be cast as a long winded boor who never gave the president any worthwhile advice. Considering his unhelpfulness in advising the president and undesirable personality he was of course fired from his position in due time.

Now he is just bitter for being fired and seeking revenge, therefore any and all information he provides is irrelevant and/or untruthful.


All of this even before the accusations of possible secret document being aired on tv angle got spun.

[Davros]

Originally posted by MagiK: Davros? is this the same Paul Oniel that was Sectreas? He was a CEO of an Aussie Corp?

What made you think I worked for an Aussie Corp ole buddy? Not many Aussie Corps that get me trips to Surinam or Jamaica or Spain. I am sending one of my direct reports to Texas next month to give the guys there some tips on how they could better operate a "PC Group". We PJ'ers invented the concept and now all our plants have them [img]smile.gif[/img] .

[Davros]

Well I have to say that my dealings are with many people who dealt with Paul. They think very highly of him and label him as :
1) a straight talker
2) Values driven - particulary safety and family
3) A sound financial manager
4) A grower of business
5) A balancer of budgets.
6) A "do'er"

My recollection may be wrong (knowledge of politics in a strange land is a tad shaky), but I see to recall that Paul never actively sought a role in politics after his retirement. The position and the new challenge had to be "sold" to him to get him into the saddle.

All that aside, I tend to have a basic repect for what he has to say, and that remains untainted by politics or recent events.

Originally posted by Chewbacca: quote: Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: His argument will not be attacked but he personally will be.

I bet he will portrayed as a administration outsider who never quite fit in and disagreed with the rest of the adminstration. He will be cast as a long winded boor who never gave the president any worthwhile advice. Considering his unhelpfulness in advising the president and undesirable personality he was of course fired from his position in due time.

Now he is just bitter for being fired and seeking revenge, therefore any and all information he provides is irrelevant and/or untruthful.


All of this even before the accusations of possible secret document being aired on tv angle got spun. [/QUOTE]
Chewie I can attest to the fact that from day one Paul Oneil (sectreas.) was in FACT an outsider (it was always mentione don the nightly news or the radio how he was ruffeling feathers and causing problems for the new abimistration. As such he was excluded from every briefing they could exclude him from by law. As Sectreas. He HAD to be in some, but by no means all briefings. Most especially he would not be invited to any meetings where "questionable" actions might be discussed.

Everything you said he would be cast as...he has nearly always been cast that way already.

Originally posted by Davros: Well I have to say that my dealings are with many people who dealt with Paul. They think very highly of him and label him as : 1) a straight talker 2) Values driven - particulary safety and family 3) A sound financial manager 4) A grower of business 5) A balancer of budgets. 6) A "do'er" My recollection may be wrong (knowledge of politics in a strange land is a tad shaky), but I see to recall that Paul never actively sought a role in politics after his retirement. The position and the new challenge had to be "sold" to him to get him into the saddle. All that aside, I tend to have a basic repect for what he has to say, and that remains untainted by politics or recent events.

Interesting and completely unreported (at least in our mainstream media in DC)
side of the guy. All we ever seemed to hear about him was how he couldn't work with the rest of the admin. and that he wasn't getting along in the position at Treasury. The things you learn here [img]smile.gif[/img]

As for my assuming you worked for an Aussie firm...a. I don't keep detailed files on people so I didn't really know what you did.
b. I ment no offense and c. I just made the assumption due to your location tag in your posts.....I do remember you like Golf though [img]smile.gif[/img]

Umm what is a "PJer"?

[Rokenn]

One note on the 'revelation' that Bush and Co were planning to attack to Iraq since Jan, 2001. That to my mind has been pretty common knowledge and was also discussed in Bob Woodward's book 'Bush at War'. The hawks in the Administration pushed hard for Iraq to be the first target after 9/11 and were barely beaten back.

It must also be remembered that all SH had to do to thwart an attack by Bush was to quit playing games and trying to be cagey with the UN weapons inspectors. If he did not have any current WoMD programs what was he thinking he was accomplishing? he did have 17 months on top of the 12 years...

[ 01-13-2004, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Well this is Oneils response to the criticisms.


[Appearing on NBC's "Today" show Tuesday, O'Neill said "The truth is, I didn't take any documents at all." He said he had asked the Treasury Department's chief legal counsel "to have the documents that are okay for me to have."

[Asked if he thought the internal Treasury probe was a get-even move by the Bush administration, O'Neill replied, "I don't think so. If I were secretary of the Treasury and these circumstances occurred, I would have asked the inspector general to look into it." But O'Neill also said he thinks the questions could have been more readily answered if top Treasury officials had talked to the agency's legal counsel.

["I'm surprised that he didn't call the chief legal counsel," O'Neill said of his successor, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.

[O'Neill said a cover page for the documents might have suggested they were classified material, but added that the legal counsel's office "sent me a couple CDs, which I never opened." He said he gave them to Suskind, the book's author.]