BuzzFlash Reviews

December 21, 2005

The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill
by Ron Suskind

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Due to a special order, we are able to offer at a reduced price (including postage) the explosive book by Ron Suskind, which details the experiences of yet another Bush whistleblower, Paul O'Neill, as he walked through the secretive Kremlinesque halls of Bush-Cheney power. We didn't offer the book when it first came out, but reconsidered upon looking through it and realizing that O'Neill offered an important perspective, revealing that the Bush White House is an Alice in Wonderland partisan "democracy be damned" thugocracy.

O'Neill wasn't a likely guy to join the others who have outed the true nature of the "Mayberry Machiavellis." He always seemed sort of maladroit as Secretary of the Treasury, but that's probably, in retrospect, because he was kept on a short leash. This is a dictatorship, after all, not a meritocracy.

One of the reasons we didn't originally sell the book, in its hardcover form, is that O'Neill clamped up shortly after appearing on "60 Minutes." Apparently the mafia don, Cheney, got the word to O'Neill that if he valued his life, he better shut up and disappear for awhile.

Interestingly enough, that's exactly what happened to another ex-insider who revealed that the White House was nothing but a self-perpetuating cash-and-carry political machine that made all of its decisions based on maintaining power: John DiIulio. In fact, it was DiIulio's letter to Suskind that coined the term Mayberry Machiavellis. Shortly after DiIulio's letter appeared in Esquire Magazine, DiIulio (who had resigned from his position as faith-based coordinator -- whatever that is -- for the White House) made himself unavailable for comment -- and hasn't talked since.

Al Capone knew how to silence his critics too: with a machine gun or a baseball bat.

We think that in Suskind's able hands, O'Neill's experience is quite revealing about the inner workings of the right wing bandits who have taken over America.

Here is what one reviewer said on Amazon.com:

I believe this is a very, very important book that every voter in the country should read. O'Neill is the first guy who's left the administration and is "old enough and rich enough" to tell the truth about how the current administration operates. I think most of us who voted for W last time did not expect him to be smart or hard working - after all, he had no history of success at anything other than being the son of President Bush 41. But, I do think we expected him to surround himself with wise counsel, listen carefully to their analysis and advice, lead his team to a consensus on the best path and then act. As this book makes crystal clear, Bush is just a dim, lazy leader who does what Cheney and Karl Rove tell him to do.

O'Neill's book gets me to this point by explaining how ideas and analysis and debate are not part of this administration's operation. Cabinet secretaries have roles to play and lines to read, but they aren't supposed to nay say about anything the Mayberry Machiavellis have already told W to do. If they dissent, they aren't team players and they will be trashed in the press and eventually "resigned". With no analysis and little experience or smarts, is it any wonder W makes so many dumb mistakes? I think not.

If you want to learn some important things, read this book. If you prefer to lazily continue to think W's doing the job right, keep on snoozing. After all, he is.

O'Neill's no role model of progressivism or genius himself. But he makes an average, pragmatic wealthy Republican appear like a paragon of normalcy amidst the ship of fools in the White House.

The fact that O'Neill can seem like some sort of minor hero, while being a card carrying GOP corporate profiteer, shows you just how extreme and dangerously psychotic the Busheviks are.

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