PrintNovember 10, 2007
Flooding the Kerik zone
Rudy is taking some body blows over Kerik. If everything alleged is true, he tried to pull a fast one by getting some valuable freebies from a contractor that also might (or might not) have some mob ties. And didn't declare the bribe as income. That would be a definite crime, betraying a weakness in character. It would also be a betrayal of his patron, Rudy.
Collins' gloating may be understandable. After all, how often does the Times see a sworn enemy suffer such a humiliation? But management advice coming from an institution as troubled as the Times is a bit of a stretch.
As to be expected, New York Times floods the zone today, offering not just an editorial, but a bonus a own sarcastic op-ed slamming RudyGail Collins, former opinion editor of the Times.
The editorial adopts a solemn tone, as if overwhelmed with the gravity of Kerik's offenses. It is couched in the phraseology of liberal elitism, tut-tutting the folly of ever allowing conservatives to gain power. You know the drill. Problems are "sobering" and "troubling" and "it's a sad day" when such things happen. Polite people superficially hiding their utter contempt for their troglodyte opponents.
A little perspective: it's not as if the Times never made any bad employment decisions, putting its trust in deceivers like Jayson Blair. Under the current management's watch.
Getting more personal, Collins drops the Olympian pose, becoming sardonic. However some of her bite is unfair. She mischaracterizes the so-called "command clump" that walked with Rudy after 9/11 as some sort of Praetorian guard.
"On the terrible day of Sept. 11, 2001, Kerik was with the mayor as Giuliani left the disaster at ground zero, searching for a telephone to contact the outside world. Also loyally at the mayor's side were three deputy mayors, the fire commissioner and the head of the Office of Emergency Management. They all walked north, in a little command-clump, intent on the central mission of protecting their main man. You would have thought, really, that the protecting job could have been done by youthful aides while the alleged leaders tended to the fire, emergency and police problems downtown." [emphasis added]
A shameless cheap shot. Rudy's managerial style is well described in his book Leadership. He puts tremendous importance on leaders communicating and coordinating among each other, and the command clump was all about handling the disaster well, putting his philosophy into action. Which Rudy did spectacularly well at, propelling him into the presidential stakes, as it happens.
The Times does not value loyalty, a point Collins makes explicit. She offers mordant nuggets of management advice to one of the most spectacularly successful practitioners of the art:
"Quality to avoid No. 1: Loyalty"
This may help explain why the Times has revealed intelligence secrets thwarting our efforts to protect against terrorist attacks.
As far as all the outrage over personal corruption among subordinates of a presidential candidate (or president), the Times didn't make the Clinton mafia into an argument against supporting him in any elections. Has Collins opined about the troubling pattern of associations of Hillary, from Norman Hsu to Peter Paul and beyond?
Collins' gloating may be understandable. After all, how often does the Times see a sworn enemy suffer such a humiliation? But management advice coming from an institution as troubled as the Times is a bit of a stretch.
