...In which we learn you can't spell hopeless without "HP".

[n2doc]

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of the state of Our National Dialogue which, as you know, is what Leonard Cohen would have come up with had he composed "Derp On A Wire."

For the first time, we have a unanimous selection here in the shebeen. It goes to the gang at the Hotel Overlook, where my man Chuck Todd always has been the caretaker. Sunday's episode was dedicated in the main to the attempted rehabilitation -- or, frankly, the mere habilitation -- of Carly Fiorina as a presidential candidate. This was as clear an example as ever has been of the whimisical way that the elite political press decides who is a serious candidate and who is not. Of the two "non-politicians," if Ben Carson were as bad a brain surgeon as Fiorina was a corporate officer, he'd be in prison forever and the cemeteries would be overflowing. Neither one of them has any more business being president than I do. But Fiorina is to be taken seriously because all she did was auger her company in, but not before hitting the golden silk and drifting to safety. By any measure, Ben Carson was a world-class neurosurgeon. But his campaign is a joke because he's not as smooth with the bullshit as Fiorina is. Anyway, on Sunday, Ms. Fiorina was encouraged to explain in detail why her catastrophic career as CEO at Hewlett Packard, and her utter failure as a Senate candidate in California, add up to be her primary qualifications to lead the free world. She did not disappoint.

FIORINA: Well, they did fire me. I've been very open about that. I was fired in a boardroom brawl. We had board members who were leaking information out of the boardroom. You know, the truth is this: it is a leader's job to challenge the status quo. And when you do, you make enemies. I understand that well. But the track record of the people of Hewlett-Packard and I, over an almost six-year period, is crystal clear. The stock has gone down during my tenure, as did every other single technology company. And I think what you'll find, if you follow the stock market at all, is every time there is a change with a company, the stock tends to go up, whether it's splitting the company, which the current CEO just announced.The stock market is not a good arbiter of success over the long term.

Got that? She got fired. She's been very open about that. (She couldn't exactly keep it a secret. The rest of the HP board did everything but throw a parade.) But it's that whole "leadership" thing that really makes it art. She got fired because she "challenged the status quo" and therefore, "she made enemies." Give them 15 minutes and any of these omadhauns can turn themselves into Churchill. (Although, when the British voters turfed out Churchill after World War II, they didn't give him $40 million just to go away. I should make such enemies.) But there are still substances on this earth out of which you cannot make chicken salad. Fiorina's record in public life is one of those things.

You will notice, by the way, that there was only a passing reference to the fact that, back when Fiorina was being bad enough at her job to create the adversity necessary for her to run for president, 30,000 of her fellow HP workers were being laid off. I guess that means that there are 30,000 other former HP employees equally qualified to run for president. I think I'd probably vote for any one of them instead of Carly Fiorina.

more
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a34919/gobshite-solo-this-week/