Good for him!

While he says he regrets some of the "vivid language" he used, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told the Associated Press in a Tuesday interview that he stands behind his criticisms of the inner workings of the Bush administration.

Bowed but unbroken, if you will.

By the way,

O'Neill spoke to the AP after a daylong conference in Washington examining ways to control the exploding costs of health care and deal with the crisis of 44 million Americans who do not have health coverage....

O'Neill said he is spending "10 days a week" working on health care issues because he believes there is an opportunity to adopt policies that could reduce national expenditures by 50 percent while at the same time improving the quality of care.

During his time in the administration, O'Neill also focused a lot of attention of dealing with poverty and diseases such as AIDS in Africa, touring the continent with Irish rock star Bono.

O'Neill said he was currently working on a project to bring drinking water to the thousands of villages in Africa that do not have access to clean water and that he believes Bono will join him in the effort.

I know I'm probably making way too much out of way too little, but does this mean that there actually is such a creature as a "compassionate conservative?"