A Rebel Republican: "One of the tacit operating assumptions of the Bush administration is that the checks and balances have been checked. But that implacable wall has been cracked by an insider's surprising confessions.
... O'Neill's threat is to a president unusually dependent in an election campaign on fear and credibility to sustain a sense of power and inevitability. He sounds an alarm against an unfit president who lacks 'credibility with his most senior officials', behind whom looms a dark 'puppeteer', as O'Neill calls the vice-president, and a closed cabal.
... Bush appears as a bully, using nicknames to demean people; he is querulous (when Bush waits impatiently for a cheeseburger, he summons his chief of staff. "'You're the chief of staff. You think you're up to getting us some cheeseburgers?' ... He all but raced out of the room"); he is manipulated ("'Stick to principle' is another phrase that has a tonic effect on Bush" - used by his senior adviser Karl Rove to push for additional tax cuts); he is incurious; and, above all, he is intently political. When Bush holds forth it is often to show that he's not Clinton. He informs his NSC that on Middle East peace "Clinton overreached", but that he will take Ariel Sharon "at face value" and will not commit himself to the peace process: "I think it's time to pull out of that situation." Powell is "startled".
The "inscrutable" Cheney emerges as the power behind the throne, orchestrating leaks to undermine opposing views. He uses tariffs as "political bait" for the midterm elections. When O'Neill argues that out-of-control deficits will cause a "fiscal crisis", Cheney "cut him off. 'Reagan proved deficits don't matter,' he said ... 'This is our due.'" In the end, Cheney fires O'Neill, the first vice-president to dismiss a cabinet member. "
- posted by geoff @ #