I Knew It, I Knew It

60 Minutes apparently had a bombshell interview with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, which I learned about via CNN.com this morning. Apparently O'Neill, who was forced out of Dubya's White House over tax policy - he dared question the Bush tax cut, apparently - has written a book about the inner workings of the current administration, and it's not pretty. Confirming many folks's impression of Dubya as slow-minded, O'Neill referred to him as "a blind man in a room full of deaf people." I'm fairly certain Dubya doesn't play a mean pinball, either.

Of far more importance - to me, at least - is the confirmation that the invasion of Iraq was hatched well before 9/11 took place. I've always thought that some of Dubya's handlers, led by Paul Wolfowitz, were intent on "regime change" from before the Supreme Court even put Bush in office. 9/11 was just a convenient rallying point and way to distract the country into buying the need for invasion. Regardless of what you think about the current state of the war in Iraq - I opposed getting in but recognize that to pull out Kucinich style now would be a disaster - it should be clear that the unprecedented preemptive invasion of Iraq had little to do with national security and even less to do with 9/11.

As expected, the GOP loyalists are now out to gut O'Neill's credibility. His ideas are "wacky," says one White House official. Note that these are the same folks who swallowed as completely true the ravings of a disgruntled CIA agent when he wrote his book about the Clinton White House. Different party in office, of course, means different truths.