"Taking Responsibility"

Well over twenty years ago I visited Australia having just formed a new company, Polygram Television. Kerry Packer, the owner of a media empire hosted a lunch in his dining room for an associate Mark Kaner and me. In attendance were the heads of his various companies, Newspapers, Magazines, Radio, and Television among others. As the waiter presented the main course, Packer stared at it as the service people presented lunch to his guests. Each plate contained a "gluttonous" mass of food along with a serving of something green. After a few moments, he asked the waiter "Now, what might this be?" and the waiter replied, "Chicken Mister Kerry". Packer looked around the room and asked no one in particular "Who is responsible for this? From across the table, his Television Network head Len Mauger replied, "I don't know Kerry, but it wasn't me". Everyone laughed at this except Packer, who reserved the right to be funny for himself.

Packer, "the owner" was a blame machine, and he would NEVER take responsibility when something went wrong. Packer loved intimidating his people, and did a good job in intimidating outsiders as well, including me. Owners, and Presidents have a tendency to do just that. They always have, and probably always will.

Richard Clarke has spoken out about issues vital to our country, and critical of President Bush, and members of his administration. Of course it was an opportunity for the President to say to the public that "the revelations made by Mr. Clarke are very interesting, and I will have my senior staff look into it, and report back to me with their findings. Our purpose in this administration is to serve in the public interest, and perhaps we can learn lessons from all of this." But of course that could never happen, Neither Packer nor President Bush could take responsibility for events such as these. So instead of this what did we get? We got a full court press launched by the administration not about the issues raised by Clarke, but rather an attempt to change the subject away from the issues and on to Clarke himself. I realize that it is too much to expect in Politics for someone to say, "Mr. Clarke has been a respected civil servant who has served well under several Presidents, and we take his observations seriously" My friend tell me that to expect this is to expect the impossible.

I think that most politicians never take responsibility for "anything" that has gone wrong. We tell our kids about "owning up" to our mistakes, or at least accepting the possibility that they were wrong. Young people today are experts in the art of avoiding responsibility, and are even better at it then I was at their age. It has become a true art form. "Deny, deny, deny" How many times have we heard a member of Government say "I was wrong, I made a mistake" Those words can be powerful, yet they are almost never spoken.

As a society, we encourage "whistle blowers", and then we proceed to allow them to be vilified. It would be nice and enlightening to have Rumsfeld, Rice, and Cheney etc. deal with the issues raised rather then trying to "assassinate" Clarke. Many others have had the courage to come forth and tell what might be an unpopular story, and they too are attacked. How many people in or out of Government will be willing to speak out and risk offending those in power in future? Not many I think.

Should CBS have announced that they had a conflict? (Viacom owns both the CBS Network as well as the publisher of Clarke's book) Yes they should have, but it's not relevant. Is Clarke friendly with anyone connected to Kerry? Yes, but so what. Why did he wait so long before telling his story? He did what he chose to do in this regard, and not what his detractors would have had him do. All that matters at this moment is the possible validity of his accusations, and what lessons can be learned from them, and not the details of his book deal, his hurt feelings etc.

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