All About Trey

Trying Again

Well I sent an email out to my class list about the fact that all 4 military papers (Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times, and Marine Corps Times) are calling for Rumsfeld resignation or firing. And this is what I get in response:

"As a follow-on to the comments already made, the plain and simple truth is that Donald Rumsfeld is executing his boss’s strategy. Since he is still on the job, one can only assume that the President believes that the SECDEF is doing a great job. Calls for his resignation are simply ludicrous. Rumsfeld keeps doing what the President wants him to do. Who’s going to replace him, and is that person going to be some amazing savior? I can only assume that what this editorial board really wants is someone who won’t follow the President’s orders, but then that person would ultimately be fired.


I find the naiveté and lack of objectivity of most editorial boards amusing, since I know they can’t really believe most of the stuff they write. Unfortunately, their one-dimensional view of the world, combined with their very loud mouthpiece, makes their naiveté also quite dangerous. That’s a nice touch at the bottom: “this is not about midterm elections.” What a riot! They must have had some great cocktail party discussions after writing that little disingenuous nugget."

Now, my first thought was to say, "I assume the President has told his Secretary of Defense to win the war, and that really hasn't happened yet." But instead of a short snappy emotional response, I tried the following:

"Well I won’t go into the timing of the piece. You can take their words at face value, or not. I have no knowledge or insight about them, so I can’t say. But if you want to talk about timing, I would say the timing of Saddam Hussein’s death sentence, or the fact that the report on the Foley page scandal is done but won’t be released for a couple of weeks, are just as suspect. Again, I don’t know since I don’t have any insight into those processes, but it’s easy to take a skeptical view on a lot of things these days.


I want to try to look at the Rumsfeld issue a bit different. I don’t have an MBA, so please bare with me on this analogy. I’m a shareholder in a company. The CEO continues to put out glowing reports of sales, revenues, and positive press announcements supporting his COO. For three year, the COO has briefed all of the market analysts on new prospects, new markets, emerging technologies. For three years the CEO has given the COO all of the tools and resources he needs to do his job. But after three years, the market analysts are looking at the results and not seeing the gains that the COO and the CEO have been talking about. In fact, they see the opposite.
The share holders have seen their shares continue to decrease in value, despite repeated promises for a quick rebound in stock prices. Individual division managers have disclosed secret company forecasts that show the COO continues to pursue ill advised strategies, isn’t using resources properly, etc. The just released internal memos contradict the positive statements
that the COO and CEO have made to the public, analysts, and shareholders. The shareholders are having their bi-annual shareholder meeting and while they cannot remove the CEO due to contractual reasons, they want to remove the COO for his failure to perform. While the CEO may be happy with the COO, shouldn’t the shareholders be able to ask for his resignation?


Again, I do not have an MBA, so there may be dozens of holes in my analogy. Feel free to point them out.


The last thing I will add is that tomorrow (Monday) is Pat Tillman’s
birthday. His brother wrote a very eloquent open letter that you can read
here:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/"

It will be interesting to see if I get any positive responses. Or will I be flamed again for buying into that liberal, American hating, mind set again.

posted by Trey @ 9:21 PM