Friday, January 16, 2004

Fixing a Leak

White House Plumbers and Paul O’Neill

After speaking candidly last week about the inner workings of the Bush White House, Paul O’Neill is beginning to have second thoughts about breaking the Republican code of silence. He is now blaming the press for distorting some of the comments he made during a Jan. 18 interview on “60 Minutes.” In his conversation with reporter Leslie Stahl, the former Bush cabinet member offered his opinion on the president’s management style and explained that the Bush team was planning the invasion of Iraq within days after the inauguration in January 2001.

Is O’Neill now fearful that thugs inside the Bush White House could hurt him, financially and legally?

In his earlier conversations with Ron Suskind, author of a new book, The Price of Loyalty, O’Neill apparently had little anxiety about speaking his mind. “I’m an old guy, and I’m rich. And there’s nothing they can do to hurt me,” O’Neill told Suskind.

Based on the White House’s immediate and aggressive counterattack, however, O’Neill appears now to believe he could end up a less wealthy man if he doesn’t tone down his comments and express contrition for disrespecting the president. The Bush administration’s announcement the day after the 60 Minutes interview that it planned to investigate whether O’Neill provided Suskind with secret government documents was the first indication that the White House had chosen not to take the former treasury secretary’s “betrayal” lightly. Just as the U.S. invasion of Iraq has sent a message to nations about the punishment for failing to obey Washington, the reaction by the Bush White House to O’Neill’s comments is likely to serve as a warning to any other disgruntled Bushite to keep his or her mouth shut unless he or she wishes to face the wrath of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

O’Neill’s comments, however, also indicate that not everyone inside the White House is happy with the radical direction of the administration. Speaking at the OneDance Summit in Santa Cruz, Calif., earlier this week, author Michael Parenti said that O’Neill’s comments indicate that some elements within the ruling class fear the reactionary policies of the Bush administration may backfire by ultimately weakening the establishment’s grip on power.

Echoing Parenti’s comments, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney said that Washington is “seeing a crack in the solidarity of the administration.”

Speaking about the Bush administration’s foreign policy, author William Blum told the OneDance audience that the Bush administration is “as fanatic and fundamentalist as Osama bin Laden.” Based on the allegiance shown by the administration’s civilian troops to its commander, the Bush White House appears to have succeeded in hiring the right people to work for its “fanatical” and “fundamentalist” cause.

Blum also warned that the information the press feeds the public about the Bush White House is only the tip of the iceberg. The revelations about operations inside the Nixon White House during the Watergate scandal, Blum explained, should have taught Americans two things: What the government is doing is worse than you think and don’t believe anything until it has been officially denied.

If Rove and Cheney can successfully frighten an old, rich guy like Paul O’Neill for speaking out, don’t count on getting much extra scoop on the inner workings of the White House while Bush is still in power. And don’t count on the Washington Post and other members of the establishment press conducting investigations that will contribute to the downfall of a Bush presidency, as has been the Post’s claim about its role in Nixon’s resignation.  -- Mark Hand

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