The Price Of Loyalty, Redux

I remember a long, long time ago when a man named Ron Suskind wrote a book with a man named Paul O'Neill, wrote a book called The Price of Loyalty. O'Neill was one of the inaugural class of refugees from the Bush Administration. The book included one of the * first known * public suggestions that the Bush Administration's push to fight in Iraq was, perhaps, somewhat unnatural.

I remember it like it was just spring 2004. I ran out and bought the book, despite its sunny cover photograph of O'Neill and President McCokespoon. I read the book. And I told everyone I knew that it wouldn't be the last time we'd hear the suggestion that the Bush Administration cobbled together a case for war in Iraq from September Eleventh scrap.

Spring 2004? It seems so much longer ago than that. And, it seems incredible today that at one time, voices like O'Neill's and that of Richard A. Clarke were rather singular, so singular that every such claim warranted its own 60 Minutes interview.

The latest voice comes from Rep. John Murtha, a moderate Democrat from Pennsylvannia, a former Marine, and, incidentally, the first combat vet from Vietnam to be elected to the House, recipient of the Bronze Star and two Purple Heart awards.