The Real Reason She Got Fired

Now Serving Crispy Bruschetta with Scapegoat Cheese

Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett-Packard and until recently advisor to the McCain campaign, caused a small stir when she said that Sarah Palin did not have the experience to run a major company. She later qualified this comment by adding that John McCain didn't have that kind of experience, either. Finally, she added that Barack Obama and Joe Biden couldn't run a major company either, before promptly being fired.

Here's my quick, irrelevant question, before we get on to the big beef here: Should we expect candidates for president to have the experience necessary to run a company - not just the ability or leadership qualities, but the experience? Hilariously, Fiorina's defense of her statements, something to the effect of "But Palin isn't running for CEO," was a legitimate point. It's absurd to expect our presidential candidates to be qualified for a very different job, but this obvious truth was lost in a world where nuance is largely ignored, and oversimplification is the order of the day.

We shouldn't be talking about who can and can't run a major company. CEOs are accountable to shareholders; Presidents are accountable to everybody. CEOs don't veto legislation, engage in diplomacy with other countries (oh sure, "diplomacy" with other CEOs. Must a CEO study the cultural practices of other companies before going abroad to speak with them?), or have to deal with anything resembling Congress and the Supreme Court. CEOs manage companies; presidents manage economies. CEOs don't have any kind of authority over war (well, at least in theory), over "hot-button social issues" like abortion or gay marriage. CEOs are not expected to perfectly execute that most vague and difficult of tasks, "being a leader" to an entire nation of people.

Anyway. The real reason Carly Fiorina got fired was not for her candid statements about her boss, which should not have (but probably has) hurt his campaign, but because of her very un-hip reaction to Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. There's nothing John McCain hates more than to be portrayed as uncool and behind the times. (All those celebrity ads about Obama? As MSNBC's liberal talking heads suggested, I think he's jealous of Obama's coolness.)

Even as Johnny Mac and Sarah P were saying nice things about the SNL skit, Fiorina derided it as "sexist." (In what way, you ask? Because she thought it made Hillary Clinton, who incidentally is a woman, look better than Sarah Palin.) Ooops.

The Campaign: "Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain, and almost all the campaign staff, watched it and thought it was hilarious. Carly is speaking for herself."

Polemics

Now Serving An Ass-Kicking, Courtesy of Simone de Beauvoir

"In September 1948, in one of his articles in the Figaro littéraire, Claude Mauriac - whose great originality is admired by all - could write regarding woman: 'We listen on a tone [sic!] of polite indifference...to the most brilliant among them, well knowing that her wit reflects more or less luminously ideas that come from us.' Evidently the speaker referred to is not reflecting the ideas of Mauriac himself, for no one knows of his having any. It may be that she reflects ideas originating with men, but then, even among men there are those who have been known to appropriate ideas not their own, and one can well ask whether Claude Mauriac might not find more interesting a conversation reflecting Descartes, Marx, or Gide rather than himself. What is really remarkable is that by using the questionable we he identifies himself with St. Paul, Hegel, Lenin, and Nietzsche, and from the lofty eminence of their grandeur looks down disdainfully upon a bevy of women who make bold to converse with him on a footing of equality. In truth, I know of more than one woman who would refuse to suffer with patience Mauriac's 'tone of polite indifference.'"

Dear Telecomm Companies: Suck It

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A Tribute to Harper's Index

Revenue in "the last year of Bill Clinton," according to James Pinkerton in a Newsday article: $2.025 trillion

Revenue projected for this year thanks to "supply-side magic," also according to Pinkerton: $2.458 trillion

$2.025 trillion adjusted by the inflation rate from January 1999 to June 2007: $2.567 trillion