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March 24, 2006

Oh, If Only The U.S. Media Had The Ability To Read Books

I finally read The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind. As you may remember, it came out two years ago. Let no one say I'm a slave to the news cycle.

It turns out to be an amazing book, far better than the standard political crap clogging our nation's reading arteries. And while it got a lot of attention when it was published, there were still sections that surprised me.

For instance, here's an account of a May 16, 2001 National Security Council meeting on the Mideast. Among the attendees were Bush, Rumsfeld, Powell, O'Neill and George Tenet:

...Tenet gave his report on intelligence—it was still only speculation, he told Bush, whether Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or was starting any weapons-building programs.

...there was little to tell or hear. O'Neill had reviewed a pile of CIA intelligence dossiers prior to this meeting. "Everything Tenet sent up to Bush and Cheney about Iraq was very judicious and precisely qualified. The President was clearly very interested in weapons or weapons programs—and frustrated about our weak intelligence capacity—but Tenet was clearly being careful to say here's the little that we know and the great deal that we don't. That wouldn't change," O'Neill recalled, "and I read those CIA reports for two years." [emphasis in original]

This seems important, wouldn't you think? And when The Price of Loyalty was published, many accounts mentioned O'Neill's skepticism about WMD intelligence. But this is the most critical section of the book on this issue, and using Google and Nexis I can find barely any references to it. The exceptions are:

1. A Los Angeles Times review (which gets some details wrong).
2. A speech by Ted Kennedy at the Council on Foreign Relations.
3. A column on Buzzflash by Walter Uhler.
4. A few blarghs quoting 1-3.

Was this somehow enough to get the attention of everyone except for me? Or did it really drop through the cracks?

Posted at March 24, 2006 06:35 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I thought everyone kndw that the MSM specializes in chasms, not cracks.

The internets (which still hangs on to the cracks), on the other hand, is what brought skeptical me to this magical site.

Posted by: Jesus B. Ochoa at March 24, 2006 10:15 AM

Damn, Jonathan, now I'm going to actually have to read it. I should have listened to my father and read it when he bought it for me when it came out.

Posted by: Saheli at March 24, 2006 12:14 PM

Jesus,

Thank you for recognizing this site's magicality. It makes me feel good. And it's good for you, too, because if you didn't recognize it I would turn you into a tadpole.

Saheli,

As I say, the book's a million miles above the run of the mill sludge. Really compelling, for all kinds of reasons. Indeed, I will speak more of this soon.

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at March 24, 2006 01:11 PM

Darn you anyway!!! Now here is another one for my "longer than I have left to live" reading list. I am still working on Phillips' last two on the Bush cabal.

Thanks. Sites like yours, CURSOR, et al make life more bearable for me because I know there still remains a bastion of thinking people in this country and the world.

Bob R.

Posted by: Bob Reynolds at March 24, 2006 03:15 PM

Tadpoles do not fare well in far west Texas, so please consider the magical horned (not horny) toad, which weeps tears of blood when alarmed.

Posted by: Jesus B. Ochoa at March 24, 2006 05:38 PM

Definitely one of the most compelling books, and the only truly "Insider's View" of the administration to come out so far.

We must destroy this Ron Suskind for his treason!

Posted by: JS Narins at March 25, 2006 08:06 AM

It's a great book, which I also began to read fashionably late.

One of the nicer aspects of the local Dem HQ during the 2004 and 2005 campaigns was our mini-library -- books like Against All Enemies, Bush's Brain, and the O'Neill/Suskind one that volunteers left for others to borrow. Late in the Kaine campaign, I started The Price of Loyalty during lunch hours, and was surprised by how good it was.

The description of the first NSC meeting was outstanding (where Iraq was on the agenda and it became clear to O'Neill that a decision had already been taken, by a small group outside the meeting). I also enjoyed also the account of how Cheney killed global warming initiatives (which O'Neill and Whitman had been put in charge of)without leaving many fingerprints. And the eerie account of his regular meetings with Bush, at which Bush never said anything. O'Neill understood it was a puppet government pretty early on.

The book got packed up and returned to its owner before I could arrange for a loan; must track it down again.

Posted by: Nell at March 25, 2006 03:16 PM