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Carly Fiorina's Master Smoke Blowing
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
May 10, 2015
All Rights Reserved.
Telling Yahoo News’ Katie Couric that Washington “job titles”
don’t count for experience, 60-year-old former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina proved
she blows smoke than most GOP candidates.. “In a world that I come from, a title’s just
a title,” insisted Fioina, dissing Democratic frontrunner former First Lady, U.S. New
York Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“Why are we so impressed with political titles?” asked Carly.
“A senator is a title, Secretary of State is a title.
What has anyone accomplished with their title,” said Fiornia, showing the kind of non sequiturs that
defy disbelief. If you follow Carly’s logic, only experience
as a CEO in the tech business qualifies as experience.
Discredited because she lacks government experience, Fiorina stretches logic to the breaking point.
In case Carly wonders, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State
are real jobs.
Carly boasts of loads of experience in the tech business,
failing to recall her experience a Lucent Technology, a telecom spin-off of “Ma Bell, when she jumped ship in
1999 right before the tech bubble burst in 2000. Lucent was one of
the telcom high-flyers during the bubble, watching its stock soar to $85 a share before crashing to $1 in the 2000.
Fiorina learned well how Wall Street’s con artistry wins you more stock
options, like the $70 million she got from HP after becoming CEO. What the
board of Hewlett Packard didn’t know is that Fiorina claimed to sell nearly a billion dollars of Lucent products, when, in
fact, she financed the sales for financially strapped companies, burying Lucent in massive debt.
Lucent went broke, spinning off its many unprofitable subsidiaries. Fiorina has
tremendous experience leveraging a company to the breaking point, then bailing out.
Fiornia’s detractors criticize her for laying of some 30,000 HP employees, which she said made the company
more profitable. She claims serving as U.S. senator or secretary of
state doesn’t qualify in Carly’s world as experience, only milking tech companies until they go broke.
“There’s nothing worse that laying someone off,” Carly tells her critics.
“I had to make some tough calls during some tough times that many technology
companies did not survive at all,” referring to the 2000 crash, that left many tech investors bankrupt.
Carly blames her dismissal from HP in 2005 on a “boardroom brawl,” not admitting
her mismanagement and incompetence. “You know, the truth is this:
It is a leader’s job to challenge the status quo.
And when you do, you make enemies,” Fiorina told Couric.
HP’s board was tired of Carly’s empty promises, when the company kept losing money.
Insisting she understands executive decision-making, Fiorina operated as a CEO exactly as she does interviews, accepting no
responsibility and blaming everyone else. “I understand the executive decision making,
which is making a tough call in a tough time, for which your are prepared to be held accountable,” insisted Carly.
She passes the buck and blames everyone other than herself for failure and Lucent and HP.
“Something Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a track record of,” is a classic of “the pot calling
the kettle black.” With recent polls showing Hillary beating all GOP opponents, Carly mirrors
the current Republican National Committee strategy of throwing mud at Hillary for Benghazi and her more recent e-mail practies while Secretary
of State. Carly insists Hillary hasn’t held a real job like her, hiding behind her Washington title
of U.S. senator and secretary of state.
Unlike Hillary, Carly hasn’t written on any major issue facing U.S. or domestic foreign policy. Her thoughts on the economy only
relate to the crazy way high-flying tech companies do business. If she follows that model,
she’s have the government lending out oodles of cash or letting cash-strapped industries go broke.
On foreign policy, Fiorina hasn’t one carefully reasoned opinion on what to do in the Middle East, Iran, North Korea, Ukraine, Russia or
any other hot-button issue facing the U.S. “Many, many voters are actually looking for some
outside the political class,” Fiorina told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” Shooting from the hip, Fiorina has nothing to back up her
claim that voters want someone with only CEO experience. Running behind most GOP candidates at
only 3%, Fiorina’s message isn’t resonating with GOP voters, preferring candidates with Washington “titles.”
Carly’s longshot bid to rise among the GOP ranks gets worse every time she presents herself to the media.
Whatever one thinks of Hillary, or, for than matter, any other candidate running with elected experience in Washington or at the state level,
most know Hillary’s among the most qualified candidates to ever run for president. “In addition,
I have done a lot of policy work, advised secretaries of defense, heads of CIA and NSA, secretaries of state, and the Homeland Security,” said
Fiornia, blowing more smoke than a Texas BBQ. Carly’s advice, if she ever gave any, was on technology
issues, nothing related to running any of the departments she mentioned. Her surly responses to
interviewers’ questions about her qualifications underscore her inexperience. “So, I’m not a neophyte, but I do come to this run with some
qualifications that others don’t have,” insisted Carly.
About The Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national
and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The
Bullet and Operation Charisma.
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