Must have goddamn subscription to read, MFing NYT!
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/opinion/02krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=printJune 2, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Secretary, Protect Yourself
By PAUL KRUGMAN
To: Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary-designate
So you decided to take the job, after all. It's no surprise that they wanted you. As the joke that's making the rounds puts it, they're so desperate they're scraping the top of the barrel. But most of us are surprised that you accepted.
No doubt you received assurances that like Robert Rubin, but unlike your predecessors in this administration, you'll get to be a real Treasury secretary. And you probably believe that those assurances can be trusted, if only because the Bush people currently need you a lot more than you need them.
But Paul O'Neill, who received tremendous acclaim from the news media when he was appointed Treasury secretary, must have believed the same thing. The fact is that you'll be treated well as long as you are perceived as someone who adds credibility with people outside the administration, and not a moment longer. Yet I'm sure you're already under pressure to say things that will fatally undermine your credibility.
Before we get to the specifics, you need to disabuse yourself of any illusion that this administration rewards loyalty. Nobody was more loyal than Larry Lindsey, President Bush's first top economist. Yet when Mr. Lindsey blurted out an inconvenient truth — that the Iraq war was likely to cost a fair amount of money (although we now know that his estimate was only a small fraction of the true cost) — he was fired.
And not just fired; he was fired in as insulting a fashion as possible, including snide remarks about his personal appearance. (White House aides made a point of telling reporters that Mr. Bush complained about Mr. Lindsey's failure to exercise.)
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