O'Neill Book - Clinton Policy discussion (NSC meeting 10 days into office)

[cthrumatrix]

page 75

Those present who had attended NSC meetings of the previous administration --and there were several -- noticed a material shift."In the Clinton administration, there was enormous reluctance to sue American forces on the ground; it was almost a prohibition."one of them recalled. That prohibition was clearly gone, and that opened options, options that hadn't been there before."


Comment
So clearly a previous president has a policy on the world. For shrub to say that we used Clinton's policy is a "fraud". Of course, it makes it look real bad when you are bringing out oil maps the first month into office.

Also, all this direction did not come from shrub -- he is a puppet while it seems Rummy, Wolfie and others are bringing ideas into these meetings (Neocons at work). It seems to suggest that were "meetings before the meetings" and that people didn't really rationalize to much ...which O'Neill seemed was odd.

[Snappy]

1. 180 Degree Turn

O'Neill outright lied on a TV interview about his own statements.
Someone must've got to him and threatened him with something.
The attack and spin on his statements and him from the wingnuts are heavy handed.

[cthrumatrix]

3. I think others jumped on his "red meat" words -- but he didn't recant much

it was spun by the media like he did and others jumped in that bush "had no preconceived ideas of iraq before office"

true...bush had no ideas about anything...the Neocons brought up the Iraq issue.

The best thing for all to do is read the book...you shake your head and if the media read ... and we had journalist....there would be a field day. Becuase shrub is a puppet in this book...not many ideas and doesn't engage in much thought provoking exchanges with his team.

Richard Pearle says as much in the book --- that bush doens't really no too much .... you may remember that from another time.

[DrBB]

2. GOP defense relies on an equivocation

It's clear that the PNACers came into office with Iraq as a high priority. But it wasn't Bush's policy. Not yet, not officially. But so what? These guys were indeed laying the groundwork, and they had no intention of letting the issue get lost in the noise. They hit the ground running on this, and it was clearly their intention to put their ideas into practice.

And yes, they--many of them anyway--had honed those ideas as members of the PNAC. I don't for the life of me see why it is loony, paranoid or illegitimate to bring that up. It isn't a secret or a conspiracy theory, just the intellectual background--there's nothing strange about foreign policy professionals forming think tanks and working out policy ideas. But for some reason we're not supposed to talk about it, and we're crackpots if we do.

on edit: Oh, and thanks so much for sharing these clips with us this morning, cthrumatrix. Great stuff.

[Guaranteed]

4. Does it say which tax cut O'Neill opposed?

Suskin said it was the 2nd one on Monday morning, and then O'Neill said it was the third on Tuesday morning.

[cthrumatrix]

5. It goes in-depth on all the tax discussions

O'Neill and Greenspan were focused early on about savibng soc security with the surplus form the clinton years... as the economy worsened ...and the surplus became less then they thought...their early commitment to backing all the tax cuts needed to be recalibrated...at least interms of using some of that money towards soc sec.

To me it shows that you have O'neill thinking long term trying to save a social safety net ...while shrub politically is thinking short term (campaign promise) and trying to feed the economic growth.

I'M 2/3rds through it... what I see is shrub is "inflexible" on his tax ideas...and doesn't discuss things..."I don't negotiate with myself"..whatever that means. O"Neill is caught between the crosshairs as you know it was soo political.

I think O'Neill was prudent in his approach ... he analyzed..he consulted..he was thinking out for americans and the deficit...shrub was more focused on short term.

[cthrumatrix]

6. kick for pm group

[CatWoman]

7. cthru

I really like your posts, but would you consider using the spell checker?

:D