A Voice that Defined a Presidency and Set the Gold Standard for Political Eloquence
Just short of half a century to the day when John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States, his last remaining counselor, Ted Sorensen, passed away. He was 82. To be picked by President Kennedy, a man of great letters and literary appreciation himself, to be a speechwriter and advisor at a young age was high praise itself. But Ted Sorensen went on to give the young president and the world soaring prose that illuminated that presidency in a way that has been matched by no other since. He was a master of words — yes — but like all truly great speechwriters, he had a gift for understanding the innermost timeless yearnings of people for truth and justice, hope and opportunity, fairness and the freedom to accomplish. Mr. Sorensen knew, as well, that while ordinary people can do much, they can do even more with leaders who shine a beacon to point the way forward.
Neither his sense of optimism nor his capacity to craft thoughts that inspire dulled with time, as his concluding remarks in Counselor, one of his last books, eloquently testify:
I still believe that the mildest and most obscure of Americans can be rescued from oblivion by good luck, sudden changes in fortune, sudden encounters with heroes.
For the immortal words and ideas he created that became the gold standard for political eloquence half a century on, Ted Sorensen was one of our heroes. We will miss him.
It is not whether someday Apple shareholders will wish they had a more robust corporate governance regime. It is only a matter of when this will occur, and at what price.
There is a widely held consensus, made all the more vivid as the company’s stock pushes past $300 a share, that Apple Inc. is an amazing success story whose vision has transformed the way we hear and communicate with much of the world. We share that view. But we also have long held on these pages that Apple remains an under-governed and poorly directed company that needlessly places continued success at risk.
We were the first to spotlight the absence of women on its cozy six-member board (it has one now) and the fact that its chairmanship, which is informally held by Steve Jobs, has never been properly documented. The board meets infrequently and there is no reasonable way such a small number of directors could properly discharge their duties serving on Apple’s various committees, especially on top of the other outside roles most board members have. Three of Apple’s five outside directors serve as either chairman or CEO of other companies and sit on additional boards as well. Steve Jobs remains synonymous with Apple and a key to its success. Despite much ballyhoo about having others who could fill his shoes when he took his medical leave a few years ago, this is widely viewed as wishful thinking. The board has done little to show that an active succession plan is in place.
This style of corporate governance may be suited to a fledgling business located in a garage. But when it comes to one of the most highly valued companies by shareholder capital ($278 billion by today’s count) in North America, a higher standard is surely advised.
Why is Apple reluctant to adopt the corporate governance reforms enacted by so many companies? One reason may be that it has the same mindset about the company’s own vulnerabilities that it applies to its computers. Antivirus software, it is widely asserted by Apple aficionados, is for all those other millions of computers operating on the Windows system. Few viruses ever affect Macs, so they say. That’s more than a bit of wishful thinking, too, as there are dozens of other ways in which Mac computers can be compromised, as anyone who has had an encounter with malware or phishing exercises will attest. More likely, though, it’s probably just plain old hubris — the imposter of triumphant success that has seen the demise of great leaders and mighty institutions for thousands of years. There is little that is permanent about success, except the universal principle that success is never permanent.
It is not whether someday Apple shareholders will wish they had a more robust corporate governance regime, led by a larger and more engaged group of independent directors. It is only a matter of when this will occur, and at what price. Behemoths that did not take corporate governance, among other matters, seriously, have been struck down to pitiful shells before. Some, like General Motors, rise again — but never to their previous dominance. Others, like Enron, WorldCom and Penn Central Railway, vanish altogether.
It should not take the prospect of a Titanic disaster to realize that with every surge upward to yet more dizzying heights in its stock, Apple’s investors have also begun to move into some very perilous waters.
Having brought the economy of the United States, and a good part of the world, to the brink of a global depression, the American banking system has now unleashed a second scandal. This one involves an epidemic of cheating and lying in court filings by those handling home repossessions. It has been happening for many years. It has worked very well for the banks. And it would have continued to do so, had a few judges not decided that, in an economy so decisively affected by what happens in the housing market, it might be a good idea if bank representatives were actually telling the truth. What a novel idea.
Evidence increasingly shows that in tens of thousands of cases, the bank employees signing foreclosure documents had no training and possessed no knowledge of the underlying facts. They were just there to sign their names in order to give a veneer of procedural fairness to the process. In one case, an employee of GMAC has admitted under oath that he typically prepared 400 foreclosures a day and that, contrary to what was attested in his sworn statements, he did not know any of the details about the cases. Once again, as with the toxic investment vehicles they created, it appears that much of the ethically challenged banking sector wasn’t really interested in either the truth or in the more far-reaching consequences of their actions. They were interested only in cutting corners and making more money. Their victims this time are not investors and bank shareholders, although many are now beginning to feel unpleasant effects as financial stocks plunge with the deepening extent of the scandal. It is past and future homeowners who are the object of the bank’s miscreancy.
In most states, bank repossessions have stopped while companies like GMAC, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and others, along with government regulators and the predictable cast of lawyers, look at fixing the mess that has been created. At this point, any further drag on the housing market may well prompt lawmakers and the Fed to look at another stimulus — perhaps even a second TARP — which will obviously be paid for again with taxpayer money. The previous bailout was made necessary because of widespread banking improprieties. If there is another one, it will be in no small part because the banking industry in America still has a problem with truth and accuracy. It is never a good situation when these virtues are found in short supply, especially in banks. Their absence reflects an industry that still does not get it and prefers to place immediate benefits over ethical conduct and a demand for profits and bonuses ahead of decency and common sense.
It is an industry that continues to be well deserving of the outrage of Americans.
Finally, President Obama has decided to change the tone of the West Wing. Rahm Emanuel, whom we predicted last December would leave before the end of the year, has been sent packing back to Chicago. His leadership for the White House saw a bewildering loss of political capital, an alienation of the party base and deadlock with the Republicans.
Not all can be laid at the feet of Mr. Emanuel. But when you have a reform-minded president determined to break new ground in the manner Mr. Obama was, you need a conciliating and stabilizing influence in the West Wing, not a confrontational, profane street fighter. Mr. Emanuel was the wrong man for the job. It may or may not have been his fault. It was Mr. Obama’s choice. He will not get another chance to make it right if it is a second underperforming and uninspired choice that he selects to lead the staff of the White House. Only the president will be left to blame and it will be too late then to make much of a difference.
Conrad Black is back at his (temporary) winter home in Palm Beach after being freed on bail pending the outcome of his appeal. His conservative friends in their College of Cardinals-type media conclaves appear to seek his beatification for what he has gone through. If he is found to have been wrongly convicted, as countless numbers are in Canada and the United States every year without a whisper of concern from Mr. Black’s supporters — or the tens of millions at their disposal to make that case, as Mr. Black has — he is entitled to all the redress available for one of the most terrible wrongs the state can perpetrate on a person. But, as Stephen Bainbridge points out, there is still much of the dark earth about him that stands between Mr. Black and his final elevation to sainthood.
Richard Fuld was back before another committee attesting to the fundamental strength of Lehman Brothers, which went under for every conceivable reason, except, of course, the failure of its leaders. Follow-up question: does the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission realize that Lehman had a board of directors who might shed some light on the calamity? Fed chief Ben Bernanke was also back before the Commission, after the Fed admitted, once again, that it misread the depth of the economic downturn in recent months. A change in lyrics was also detected regarding Mr. Bernanke’s explanation as to why Lehman was not saved. The self-serving music remains the same, however. BP’s infamous blow out preventer made its way back to the surface; its corporate image is still submerged somewhere in an ocean of missteps and CEO blunders. HP’s board is back in the news, and not in a good way. It showed that you can spend tens of millions on a CEO and, for that lofty sum, still get a chief executive with a missing ethics gene. The directors’ solution? Spend tens of millions more to get rid of him in the face of the deception which the board claimed was the reason for his ousting. Go figure. Canada saw a new Governor General appointed to represent the Queen as head of state. It came on the sole recommendation of a prime minister whose Conservative Party holds a minority position in parliament. It is a throwback to a time when most Canadians could not read or write and women did not have the vote. Still, few Canadians seemed bothered by the quaint tradition. On the other hand, few parents teach the idea that any girl or boy can grow up to be GG someday.
President Obama is back to a freshly redecorated Oval Office, where he has hatched yet another stimulus package. The new soft beige seating areas will provide a calming effect when yet lower approval ratings are published. As the distancing of the President from the electorate becomes more pronounced, and the loudening canons of Republican victory signal their approach with each day, one can almost hear the mournful reprise of a love no longer to be: “We’ll always have health care.”
However timeless the Pyramids of Giza and the inscrutability of the Great Sphinx remain, they cannot for more than a few weeks distract our attention from the greater monuments of folly and misjudgment that today’s Pharaohs of business and government routinely create.
They will be pleased to know that, along with all of them, we are back, too.
A Voice that Defined a Presidency and Set the Gold Standard for Political Eloquence