Paul who?

Paul O’Neill, first Treasury Secretary under President George W. Bush, died yesterday at 84. His death will be little noticed by the public and that’s a shame. Most have no idea of his many contributions to both business and government, much less he even existed. But we should all know and honor him for his refusal to go along with reckless Bush polices from unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy to the illegal invasion of Iraq. Bush fired O’Neill just 3 months before the March, 2003 Iraq invasion, possibly to make cabinet agreement to that catastrophic enterprise unanimous. O’Neill responded with an excellent insider tell-all book with the telling title ‘The Price of Loyalty: George W. ‘Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill’. He describes how regime change for Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was brought up at the first cabinet meeting eight months before 911. During the run up to the war, short the three months he was axed, all the discussion was how to achieve that goal, not whether it was necessary. Paul O’Neill is gone. We need more like him in government today to tell the truth and push back against mendacity and stupidity.