The George W. Bush White House, as described by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, is a world out of kilter. Policy decisions are determined not by careful weighing of an issue's complexities; rather, they're dictated by a cabal of ideologues and political advisors operating outside the view of top cabinet officials. The President is not a fully engaged administrator but an enigma who is, at best, guarded and poker-faced but at worst, uncurious, unintelligent, and a puppet of larger forces. O'Neill provided extensive documentation to journalist and author Suskind, including schedules with 7,630 entries and a set of 19,000 documents that featured memoranda to the President, thank-you notes, meeting minutes, and voluminous reports. The result, The Price of Loyalty, is a gripping look inside the meeting rooms, the in-boxes, and the minds of a famously guarded administration. Much of the book, as one might expect from the story of a Treasury Secretary, revolves around economics, but even those not normally enthused by tax code intricacies will be fascinated by the rapid-fire intellects of O'Neill and Fed chairman Alan Greenspan as they gather for regular power breakfasts. A good deal of the book is about the things that O'Neill never figures out. He knows there's something creepy going on with the administration's power structure, but he's never inside enough to know quite what it is. But while those sections are intriguing, other passages are simply revelatory: O'Neill asserts that Saddam Hussein was targeted for removal not in the 9/11 aftermath but soon after Bush took office. Paul O'Neill makes for an interesting protagonist. A vaunted economist from the days of Nixon and Ford, he returns to a Washington that's immeasurably more cutthroat. And while he appears almost naïvely academic initially, he emerges as someone determined to speak his mind even when it becomes apparent that such an approach spells his political doom. --John Moe

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Penned by Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Ron Suskind and based on the revelations of former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, this controversial expos￯﾿ﾽ is an eye-opening look at the first two years of President George W. Bush's uniquely eventful administration.

Suskind recounts how Alcoa CEO O'Neill -- a plainspoken businessman with unimpeachable ethics and a reputation for getting things done -- was recruited for the prestigious cabinet post; how, despite misgivings, he signed on to join a team he truly believed was committed to a centrist ideal; and how, 23 months later, he was summarily fired for his tell-it-like-it-is brand of pragmatic leadership. Chronicling the ups and downs of his tenure in the Bush White House, O'Neill describes some genuinely surreal scenes -- from the National Security Council meeting in February 2001, where regime change in Iraq mysteriously soars to the top of the foreign policy agenda, to mystifying presidential flip-flops on tax cuts, global warming, and corporate accountability that leave even top-tier officials scratching their heads. Tarred as a contrarian in an administration that valued ideology over analysis, O'Neill soon found himself blindsided by an inner circle of advisers that included his longtime friend Dick Cheney.

Inarguably, the most fascinating portrait (in a gallery that includes Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, and Alan Greenspan) is of POTUS himself. George W. Bush emerges as an inscrutable enigma, bereft of curiosity, intolerant of dissent, and curiously content to be scripted, rehearsed, and handled. It's evident that Paul O'Neill, with his passionate commitment to transparency and candor, and the opaque, super-secretive Bushites were a bad match from the get-go. Anne Markowski

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Updated with a new afterword and including a selection of key documents, this is the explosive account of how the Bush administration makes policy on war, taxes, and politics -- its true agenda exposed by a member of the Bush cabinet. This vivid, unfolding narrative is like no other book that has been written about the Bush presidency. At its core are the candid assessments of former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, the only member of Bush's cabinet to leave and speak frankly about how and why the administration has come to its core policies and decisions -- from cutting taxes for the rich to conducting preemptive war. O'Neill's account is supported by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind's interviews with numerous participants in the administration, by transcripts of meetings, and by voluminous documents. The result is a disclosure of breadth and depth unparalleled for an ongoing presidency. As readers are taken to the very epicenter of government, Suskind presents an astonishing picture of a president so carefully managed in his public posture that he is a mystery to most Americans. Now, he is revealed.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Mr. O'Neill is describing the takeover of the Republican Party ￯﾿ﾽ and consequently of the executive branch ￯﾿ﾽ by what is portrayed as a group of single-minded right-wing ideologues with loyalty only to their narrow and rapacious political self-interest … Mr. O'Neill is appalled by what he sees as a betrayal of real conservatism; he even at one point draws a parallel between the absolutists fighting to take over Pakistan for Muslim fundamentalism and the absolutism at work in the Bush White House. — Katrina vanden Heuvel

NY Times Sunday Book Review

… whether O'Neill was a brilliant Treasury secretary or a mediocre one, he did regard the public trust as a serious matter, and the case The Price of Loyalty makes about the debasement of the policy process is a strong one. ''Politics, as it's now played, is not about being right,'' O'Neill concludes. ''It's about doing whatever's necessary to win. They're not the same.'' One finishes this book hoping that those who consider themselves the guardians of Washington integrity will do more to demand that the distinction be honored. — Michael Tomasky

Library Journal