The Gang That Wouldn’t Shoot Straight
June 9, 2009 - by
George Wallace used to rail against âpointy-headed professors who canât park their bicycles straight.â
The administrators at N.C. State
UNC President Erskine Bowles had it right about Chancellor Jim Oblinger:
“If he had just said, when asked about it, that, ‘Yes, they came to me; I thought it was a good idea; I passed it along to the people who work here for them to explore and follow up on,’ then I think that would have been the end of it.â
But the shifting stories and reluctant truth-telling did in the Chancellor. And my guess is that Oblingerâs resignation and Mary Easleyâs firing were not exactly voluntary, but that Bowles forced both moves.
Anybody who has ever worked with Bowles recognizes the look captured in the N&Oâs front-page picture: peering through those odd glasses, barely containing his impatience and about to peel the skin off some poor soul. Keep in mind: This is the man who ran the White House while Bill Clinton dodged impeachment.
NCSUâs problem appears to have been both bureaucratic and legal. Too many bureaucrats and too many lawyers saying what you canât say publicly, when common sense says get the whole story out and get it out fast. Fall forward fast, as my colleague Joyce Fitzpatrick says.
Instead, we had this day-by-day extraction of the truth â thanks to the N&O.
At the root of all this grief is Mike Easley. Dan Gerlach should have said at the beginning: âGovernor, are you sure this is a good idea? Are you sure your budget director should be calling a state university and asking them to hire your wife? How do you think this will read down the road?â
In the old days, all this would have taken place â and did, many a time â by phone. Now youâve got email. Four-year-old email messages, long forgotten, just wait there, little time bombs waiting to blow up.
But one Democratic wag found a bright side. Finally, he said, Mike Easley did something for the party: The NCSU headlines overshadowed the story about House Democrats proposing tax increases.
Click Here to discuss and comment on this and other articles.
The Gang That Wouldn’t Shoot Straight
June 9, 2009/
George Wallace used to rail against âpointy-headed professors who canât park their bicycles straight.â
The administrators at N.C. State
UNC President Erskine Bowles had it right about Chancellor Jim Oblinger:
“If he had just said, when asked about it, that, ‘Yes, they came to me; I thought it was a good idea; I passed it along to the people who work here for them to explore and follow up on,’ then I think that would have been the end of it.â
But the shifting stories and reluctant truth-telling did in the Chancellor. And my guess is that Oblingerâs resignation and Mary Easleyâs firing were not exactly voluntary, but that Bowles forced both moves.
Anybody who has ever worked with Bowles recognizes the look captured in the N&Oâs front-page picture: peering through those odd glasses, barely containing his impatience and about to peel the skin off some poor soul. Keep in mind: This is the man who ran the White House while Bill Clinton dodged impeachment.
NCSUâs problem appears to have been both bureaucratic and legal. Too many bureaucrats and too many lawyers saying what you canât say publicly, when common sense says get the whole story out and get it out fast. Fall forward fast, as my colleague Joyce Fitzpatrick says.
Instead, we had this day-by-day extraction of the truth â thanks to the N&O.
At the root of all this grief is Mike Easley. Dan Gerlach should have said at the beginning: âGovernor, are you sure this is a good idea? Are you sure your budget director should be calling a state university and asking them to hire your wife? How do you think this will read down the road?â
In the old days, all this would have taken place â and did, many a time â by phone. Now youâve got email. Four-year-old email messages, long forgotten, just wait there, little time bombs waiting to blow up.
But one Democratic wag found a bright side. Finally, he said, Mike Easley did something for the party: The NCSU headlines overshadowed the story about House Democrats proposing tax increases.
Click Here to discuss and comment on this and other articles.