主题：【美国政局】前财政部长O‘NEILL指薯仔是个瞎子 -- 西风陶陶

Former Treasury Sec. Paints Bush as 'Blind Man'

Fri January 9, 2004 10:44 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill likened President Bush at

Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," according to excerpts on Friday

from a CBS interview.

O'Neill, who was fired by Bush in December 2002, also said the president did not ask him a single

question during their first one-on-one meeting, which lasted an hour.

"As I recall it was just a monologue," he told CBS' "60 Minutes," which will broadcast the entire

interview on Sunday.

In making the blind man analogy, O'Neill told CBS his ex-boss did not encourage a free flow of

ideas or open debate.

"There is no discernible connection," CBS quoted O'Neill as saying. The president's lack of

engagement left his advisers with "little more than hunches about what the president might think,"

O'Neill said, according to the program.

CBS said much of O'Neill's criticisms of Bush are included in "The Price of Loyalty," an upcoming

book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.