George W. Bush in The Price of Loyalty


On Energy & Oil: Energy production overrules CO2 emissions

The President’s letter mentioned a new report that showed how caps on carbon dioxide emissions would lead to an even more dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly higher electricity prices. With the California energy shortage & other states worried about prices and availability this summer, we just can’t harm consumers. Kyoto was dead. Plans to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants were abandoned. Energy production is all that matters.
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p.121-123 Jan 13, 2004

On Energy & Oil: O’Neill: Industry overruled environment in energy taskforce

According to documents in O’Neill’s files, along with those obtained in various disclosure actions filed against the Cheney task force, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham met with corporations and trade groups, including Chevron, the National Mining Association, and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, each of which delivered policy recommendations in detailed reports. Cheney met with Enron chairman Kenneth Lay and received detailed policy recommendations from one industry group whose central concern was not allowing carbon dioxide to be regulated as a pollutant, as well as from another--called the Coal-Based Generation Stakeholders. If process drives outcomes--this combination of confidentiality and influence by powerful interested parties would define the task force’s analysis of energy issues. “It meant,” O’Neill says, “that environmental concerns went virtually unrepresented.”
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p.146-7 Jan 13, 2004

On Foreign Policy: Tilt back toward Israel

President Bush echoed the [pro-Israel] view: ‘We’re going to correct the imbalances of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict. We’re going to tilt back toward Israel.“ Bush continued, ‘If the two sides don’t want peace, there is no way we can force them.’ Colin Powell said, ‘a pullback by the US would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army.’ ; Bush added, ‘Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p. 71-72 Jan 13, 2004

On Free Trade: Tariffs over free trade, for steel industry

On March 5, 2002, the President announced he would impose tariffs of up to 30% on imported steel in an effort to shore up the long-declining industry. Steel executives praised the President and said that the tariffs might save jobs. Free trade advocates wondered how other countries would respond and what the effect would be on the cost of a wide array of goods.
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p.238 Jan 13, 2004

On Principles & Values: O’Neill: Bush is an ideologue, not a centrist

Was it possible, O’Neill wondered, that the country thought it had elected a centrist when in fact it had empowered an ideologue? An incident with [EPA chief Christie Todd] Whitman was the start of a rolling revelation. Whitman’s spokesperson said the EPA chief would ‘follow the president’s lead.’ The president was relying on ideologues like [supply-side economist] Larry Lindsey, Karl Rove and, he now feared, his old friend Dick Cheney. Energy concerns and the thinly supported jeremiad by industry lobbyists that the United States was in the early stages of an energy crisis had eclipsed considerations about action on global warming [at the energy task force led by Dick Cheney] This Presi
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p. 124-130 Jan 13, 2004

On Principles & Values: Bush places personal loyalty over loyalty to the truth

It seemed, suddenly, that there were no “let’s-look-at-the-facts brokers” in any of the key White House positions. A strict code of personal fealty to Bush--animated by the embrace of a few unquestioned ideologues-- eemed to be in collision with a faith in the broader ideals of honest inquiry. Even quite junior staff would sometimes hear quite senior staff pooh-pooh any need to dig deeper for pertinent information on a given issue.
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p. 125 & 171 Jan 13, 2004

On Social Security: Privatize SS while maintaining govt system

The President’s plan is to move Social Security from its safe, sleepy, government-run home to higher-yielding private accounts that individuals could help direct. In May 2000, candidate Bush had championed the idea of private accounts. Bush’s bridge proposal would mean funding two retirement systems at once. Bush had suggested that workers under about age 50 could set up new accounts--but the benefits promised to older workers and current retirees would be protected.
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p.139 Jan 13, 2004

On War & Peace: O’Neill: Bush planned on war in Iraq before 9/11

Bush’s campaign positions, that the US would be noninterventionist-that we would hesitate to become embroiled in disputes; that we would be ‘humble abroad’ and not ‘engage in nation-building’-were the very opposite of the policy that O’Neill & Powell saw unfolding. Actual plans, to O’Neill’s astonishment, were already being discussed to take over Iraq & occupy it-complete with disposition of oil fields, peacekeeping forces, and war crimes tribunals-carrying forward an unspoken doctrine of preemptive war.
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p. 129 Jan 13, 2004

The above quotations are from The Price of Loyalty:
George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, by Ron Suskind.
Click here for other excerpts from The Price of Loyalty:
George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, by Ron Suskind.
Click here for other excerpts by George W. Bush.
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Page last updated: Feb 21, 2019