bush's former treasury secretary paul o'neill is a major source in a new tell-all book & he's making the media rounds, giving interviews with time and tonight he has a big interview on 60 minutes with lesley stahl. the last lesley stahl sequence i watched was the grossly unfair propaganda piece called pirates of the internet. but if i remember i will probably watch anyway, because o'neill has some interesting things to say.

one of the major allegations he makes is that bushco started planning to oust saddam from the very start of their administration, which gives a lot of weight to the idea that the war in iraq was never about terrorism & 9/11 was just a convenient excuse. but o'neill brought with him a flood of documents, and paints a general picture of a white house driven by ideology and politics instead of trying to make correct, informed decisions.

the white house is not amused with about the book & has begun their slime campaign, like in this quote from the time article: "We didn't listen to him when he was there," said a top aide. "Why should we now?" (um, yeah, wasn't your unwillingness to listen the problem from the start?)

on the other hand, bushco might have a harder time blowing off the upcoming book by terrorism expert and former bushco insider richard clarke.