MORE ON FORMER TREASURY
SECRETARY O'NEILL STICKING IT TO BUSH

First, the new Paul Krugman essay:

The things they're saying about Bush

Ron Suskind's new book The Price of Loyalty is based largely on interviews with and materials supplied by O'Neill. It portrays an administration in which political considerations -- satisfying "the base" -- trump policy analysis on every issue, from tax cuts to international trade policy and global warming. The money quote may be Dick Cheney's blithe declaration that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." But there are many other revelations.

One is that O'Neill and Alan Greenspan knew that it was a mistake to lock in huge tax cuts based on questionable projections of future surpluses. In May 2001 Greenspan gloomily told O'Neill that because the first Bush tax cut didn't include triggers -- it went forward regardless of how the budget turned out -- it was "irresponsible fiscal policy." This was a time when critics of the tax cut were ridiculed for saying exactly the same thing.

Another is that Bush, who declared in the 2000 campaign that "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum," knew that this wasn't true. He worried that eliminating taxes on dividends would benefit only "top-rate people," asking his advisers, "Didn't we already give them a break at the top?"

Click here.

Next, courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe, some evidence that dispells White House denials:

Corroborating O’Neill’s Account

President Bush ordered the Pentagon to explore the possibility of a ground invasion of Iraq well before the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, an official told ABCNEWS, confirming the account former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill gives in a book written by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.

The official, who asked not to be identified, was present in the same National Security Council meetings as O'Neill immediately after Bush's inauguration in January and February of 2001.

"The president told his Pentagon officials to explore the military options, including use of ground forces," the official told ABCNEWS. "That went beyond the Clinton administration's halfhearted attempts to overthrow Hussein without force."

Click here.

So...when are Americans going to start believing this stuff? How many high-level, eye-witness accounts of Bush's duplicity must it take?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$