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Former Treasury Sec. Paints Bush as 'Blind Man'
Fri Jan 9 23:32:43 2004
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Source:
Reuters
Former Treasury Sec. Paints Bush as 'Blind Man'
Fri January 9, 2004
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill likened
President Bush at Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf
people," according to excerpts on Friday from a CBS interview.
O'Neill, who was fired by Bush in December 2002, also said the president did
not ask him a single question during their first one-on-one meeting, which
lasted an hour.
"As I recall it was just a monologue," he told CBS' "60 Minutes," which will
broadcast the entire interview on Sunday 1/11/04.
In making the blind man analogy, O'Neill told CBS his ex-boss did not
encourage a free flow of ideas or open debate.
"There is no discernible connection," CBS quoted O'Neill as saying. The
president's lack of engagement left his advisers with "little more than
hunches about what the president might think," O'Neill said, according to the
program.
CBS said much of O'Neill's criticisms of Bush are included in "The Price of
Loyalty," an upcoming book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.
