Any and all avenues available to the Bush administration to absolve themselves of any and all suspicion of complicity, incompetence, unconscionable plotting, and even cover-up, have been arrogantly dismissed, and no attempt has ever been made to address any of the many concerns of the people. To make matters worse, the mainstream establishment media remained complicit by their silence. And Bush administration apologists, such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly, continue to ridicule and lambaste anyone who disagrees with the readily evident tyranny of the Bush administration. And now, the Wall Street Journal can be added to this list of Bush protectors.

The CBS "60 Minutes" expose was a breath of fresh air. The Bush administration and its protectors in the media are initiating full damage control tactics to discredit the revelations of former Bush administration Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. Of course, administration flacks attacked O’Neill as being incompetent, rather than merely pointing out his disagreement with Bush’s insane, huge deficit-generating programs while advancing tax reductions. And to be clear, wasn’t that O’Neill’s function, to be an advisor? If Bush disagreed with his advice, how does this translate to incompetence? As to the asset value of loyalty, that can manifest itself also within such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, the mafia, and the Nazi Party.

On the O’Reilly factor in the evening of the very next day, know-it-all Bill O’Reilly, the neoconservative talking head of FOXNews that always educates those of lesser nobility by the battle cry "the rich and powerful always protect the rich and powerful," stated that O’Neill’s charges were invalid, regurgitating the line fed to him by the Bush administration that O’Neill made the charges to get back at President Bush for having fired him. O’Reilly belittled and relegated as insignificant O’Neill’s revelation that there was now evidence that Bush II had intended to take out Saddam right from the beginning.

Then O’Reilly shares with us his towering intellectual assessment: "Of course Bush was upset at Saddam – he tried to kill his father!" Good point, but how does this justify the death of 500 of our military, the maiming and wounding of thousands more, and the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis? It is O’Reilly who is naïve here, and expects us to accept as Gospel his narrow, intellectually challenged assessment and Bush-protecting views. Saddam was adjudicated a bad guy by this administration, and whether or not we had a right to invade his country doesn’t seem to faze O’Reilly one bit.

And now, the Wall Street Journal has sided with the illogical and vacuous right wing neocon conspiracy in pointing out Secretary O’Neill’s wrong-headed emotions. In his cheap shot column of January 12^th, WSJ’s John Fund attacks O’Neill’s revelations as the "Rage of a Relic." He begins, "Paul O’Neill is angry that the world has passed him by." Fund provides absolutely no proof of this – it was something he snatched out of thin air to set the tone of his piece without offering any evidence. Anyone who believes O’Neill is, of course, a fool as far as Fund is concerned, never ever addressing the validity of the charges, their impact relative to wrongfully getting us into an unnecessary war and the resultant loss of life. Nor does he address the 19,000 documents O’Neill and former WSJ reporter Ron Suskind have in their possession, other than merely mentioning this in passing.

All of a sudden, Bush and his secret cabal-controlled government have religion. They are launching an investigation into O’Neill’s possible wrongdoing in obtaining classified documents. Frankly, I see nothing wrong in that, even if they were obtained illegally. What law is being advanced as having been violated? Shouldn’t a similar investigation be launched concerning Bush’s constitutionally required State of the Union Speech where he lied and conned us into an unconstitutional war? When will that investigation, hopefully leading to Bush’s impeachment, begin?

Fund’s shallowness is easy to disassemble. He asserts, "Bush critics will hail Mr. O’Neill as a truth-teller, White House aides are already calling him a back-stabber." What else would they call him? "In fact," Fund goes on, "Mr. O’Neill is a relic." Notice how cleverly he weaves this back to the title of his piece? "Mr. O’Neill came into the Bush administration on the recommendation of three old friends from the Ford years: Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan and Donald Rumsfeld," he writes. But aren’t these guys relics too? He precedes this gem with, "[O’Neill] …was clearly a product of the Nixon and Ford administrations, in which he had served, and simply hadn’t adapted to the post-Reagan Republican Party." Now what party would that be, the Leon Trotsky-originated neoconservative PNAC war party?

Undeniably, O’Neill had exhibited some bizarre behavior after breaking publicly with Bush on economic issues. Fund proclaims O’Neill economically naïve for wanting to reform Social Security and our atrocious income tax code. Sounds to me like O’Neill had his economic ducks in order. But even if he did flip out somewhat, what about the accusation itself? Does Fund address that? Of course not!

Fund also writes: "In [a] conversation he told me things about his disagreements with the administration that I was surprised a cabinet officer would reveal. I was impressed with his candor but not by his wisdom. He was saved from my publishing them only by his offhand request … that they be off the record."

Now let me see if I have this right: Fund was impressed by "his candor;" does that mean Fund was impressed by O’Neill’s truthfulness? And Fund refrained from publishing O’Neill’s remarks because O’Neill requested that they be "off the record?" Then, why are they now on the record? Isn’t Mr. Fund confirming Mr. O’Neill’s indiscretion at revealing things yet confirming his truthfulness?

It is clear that both O’Reilly and Fund want us to pay absolutely no attention to that man behind the green curtain. And never mind that there was no reason to attack Iraq other than for oil and to advance the military posture of another nation not vital to our national interest. And of course, world domination also has its benefits. Never mind that we have virtually alienated every nation on the planet in the pursuit of this madness. And if anyone believes loony Paul O’Neill, well then, they’re crazy. They are asking us to focus on the wrongful emotions that delivered the truth to us, and not to focus on the facts learned. But if you are used to doing that, then why are you reading this?

"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

Ted Lang is a columnist for the The Patriotist and the Sierra Times  He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.

Ted Lang can be reached at: [email protected]

Published in the January 14, 2004 issue of  Ether Zone.
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