Brian Makes a Difference

Recently, I have been driven to write a LETTER TO THE EDITOR. What would make me take such a provactive and risky step? A column by Cal Thomas in the local paper. Thomas opens the column with this nonsense:

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reminds me of a disgruntled former employee who returns to his old workplace and starts shooting to avenge his perceived mistreatment.

In a new book by Ron Suskind and in a series of interviews, O'Neill charges that President Bush planned to topple Saddam Hussein almost from Bush's first day in office. The White House denies it and says it followed the same policy of regime change in Iraq embraced by the Clinton administration.

Well, the White House denied it, I guess we can all go home now. It isn't like the administration would ever want to hide something? Why if there were any politically damaging facts we ought to know about, I am sure the White House would hold a televised press confrence to tell us all about it.

Anyhow, Cal Thomas has been stabbed in the back by his pals in Washington. Bush has come out and said "The stated policy of my administration toward Saddam Hussein was very clear -- like the previous administration, we were for regime change." and it has been reported that when "asked about O'Neill's contention that the first National Security Council meeting of the Bush administration in January 2001 discussed ousting Saddam, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan didn't deny that account." Well, I am sure Thomas will make a course adjustment in his next article and put himself in harmony with the party line.

On CBS' "60 Minutes," O'Neill grudgingly acknowledged that the improved economy and economic growth of more than 8 percent in the last quarter of 2003 were largely the result of tax cuts. But he claimed that if taxes had not been cut, growth would have been more than 6 percent anyway, plus we could have made progress on reforming the tax code and Social Security. This argument has been made by others, most of them Democrats, but when people who believe such things are in power, they do not use the revenue to reform Social Security or even spend the people's money more wisely.

Speak of spending money wisely, isn't that the exact opposite of what the President has been doing? Discretionary spending is growing faster than it did under Carter or Clinton and Bush is yet to veto one damn spending bill.

He also gives credit to Laurie Mylroie for debunking O'Neil's claims about Bush's plans for invading Iraq. I don't know anything about the substance of this specific dispute, but Mylroie is the last person to turn to for serious research. Laurie Mylroie wrote in one of her books that Saddam Hussein was behind the first bombing of the twin towers, a theory big with the tin foil hat crowd, but not with anyone else.