Michael:
You are a most sensitive person. I just recently became a Democrat after voting GOP for a quarter-century. The GOP hypocrisy in the Clinton witch hunt was the final straw. When I saw Hank Hyde, Dan Burton and J.C. Watts join in the call for morality in office, I said, "That's it."
The New York Times posted an interesting article today on Cheney's record as a business executive.
Mixed marks given to Cheney as oil firm CEO
THE NEW YORK TIMES
In 1998, Dick Cheney pulled off what was widely seen as a business coup. Ending years of fruitless talks, Cheney arranged a merger between Halliburton, the company he ran, and its chief rival, Dresser Industries, creating the world's largest oil field services and construction company.
Negotiations were so amicable, the companies dispensed with the close scrutiny of each other's businesses that is usually part of a merger.
Some key Dresser executives quickly came to regret that decision, present and former company officials say. They were startled to learn after the deal closed that several of the major projects negotiated by Cheney's management team were much less healthy than they had appeared on Halliburton's books and were racking up significant losses.
The newly merged company was hit with several hundred million dollars of unexpected losses, including an estimated $100 million on a single pipeline project in South America begun on Cheney's watch, according to company insiders and others in the oil industry.
The Dresser merger was the biggest deal of Cheney's five years at Halliburton, and the losses that arose soon afterward were one of several missteps in a business record that has become part of his political resume since he became the Republican nominee for vice president. The Bush campaign has defended his $20 million retirement payment from Halliburton as fair compensation for a job well done.
"The American people should be pleased they have a vice-presidential nominee who has been successful in business," said Karen P. Hughes, communications director for the campaign of Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.
But just how successful Cheney was as a chief executive is a matter of considerable dispute, judging by a broad survey of his record that included interviews with present and former company executives.
Some praised him for doubling the size of the company through mergers and a growing government business that has made Halliburton the nation's fifth-largest military contractor.
Asked to assess Cheney's performance, Halliburton's vice chairman, Donald Vaughn, said he deserved a "clearly superior" grade. "Mr. Cheney was anything but a status quo man," Vaughn said. "He changed Halliburton, and the popular judgment is he changed it for the better."
Other executives, however, said Cheney failed to keep a sufficiently tight rein on the company's aggressive pursuit of overseas energy projects and road-building work in the United States. Some Wall Street analysts, too, described Cheney's performance as little better than average.
A spokesman for Cheney declined to make him available for an interview and referred questions about his tenure at Halliburton to the company. |
