PIP
5A
OPINIONS/tr^e CtarUitte «o«t
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Some hard-nosed
business advice
for President Bush
“Okay, we’ve got ourselves into more than we bai^ained
for. It’s draining our resources and keeping us fium realiz
ing our potential in other areas. So, what do we do now?”
Could these be President Bush’s New Year’s ponderings?
Probably not.
But, according to the December 12 issue
Fortime magazine, good business leaders
ask this kind of question when they find
themselves in a business “hole.”
L Andy Grove was the legendary leader of
t Intel, the successful computer chip maker.
But back in the mid 1980s Intel was about
to be on the ropes. The computer memory
D.G. chip, its “core business,” had become a com-
MaRTIN modity Intel had drawn a woiidwide group
of excellent competitors. From annual prof
its of $198 million in 1984, Intel’s profits slipped to $ 2 mil
lion in 1985.
At Intel, Grove was then second in command to Gordon
Moore. (Moore is known as the creator of Moore’s Law,
whidi says that the number of transistors that can be put
on a single computer chip doubles every two years or 18
months).
Richard Tfedlow, author of an upcoming book “The Life
and Hmes of Andy Grove,” writes in Fortune, “By aU odds,
Intel should have failed. It should have been destroyed by
the same brutal international competition that has killed
apparel companies, tire companies, and television compa
nies....”
According to Tfedlow, Grove asked Moore, “If we got
kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do
you think he would do?’
Moore said, “He would get us out of memories.”
Moore and Grove had a strong emotional attachment to
these “memories” that had made the company great. But
Moore was suggesting that under fiesh leadership Intel
would abandon the memory chip product line.
Grove remembers, “I stared at him, numb, then said,
‘Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back, and
do it ourselves?”’
They did. The adjustments were painful, but Intel’s shift
ed fiom memory chips to the kind of “brainpower” chips
that are at the heart of most computers. The “Intel Inside”
fi*anchise would not have happened if Moore and Grove
had not “walked out the dcx)r” and come back with a will
ingness to abandon the product line that was the core of
their earlier business success.
Fortune magazine (juotes famed business “guru” Pet^
Drucker on this point. “The problem is to get rid of yester
day’s successes that have outlived their potential.”
What if President Bush did “walk out the door” and come
back and look at our situation in Iraq as if he were “the
new CEO?’ What could he do? What kind decision would
he make if he had fi^h thinkers like Mcx)re and Grove by
his side?
He might get some help fiom another legend in the high
tech world, UNC-CTiapel Hill professor Fred Brooks. (His
‘Hiooks Law” states, “Adding people to a late software pro
ject makes it later”)
In Fortune, Brcx)ks outlines the options that face a com
pany when it cannot meet a promised release date for an
important software product.
According to Brooks, the company must stop thinking it
can magically meet the earlier schedule by pouring more
people and resources into the project. It should grit its
teeth and choose among three unpleasant options; (1) let
ting the deadline slip-ac^justing it conservativdy, since
each backward ac^ustment results in the loss of more cred
ibility or (2) “lightening the ship” by scaling down realisti
cally and mcxlifying the objectives to fit what can be accom
plished in the allotted time, or (3) phasing the release of
the product by completing and releasing a key component
on time, and then developing and releasing “improve
ments” over a longer period of time.
We cannot know exactly what would happen if our pres
ident w^e able to ‘Svalk out the door” in this New Year’s
season, and come back in surrounded by people like Andy
Groove, Gordon Moore, Peter Drucker, and Fred Brooks.
But I bet they would push him to take a fiesh, objective
look at his policies in Iraq and chcxjse fiom the kind of
painful opticms that Fred Brooks gives for projects that are
not going according to the original hopes and plans.
D.G. MARTIN is host of UNC-TV's “North Carolina
Bookwatch, ” which airs on Sundays at 5pm.
What if President Bush did
“waik out the door” and come
back and look at our situation
in Iraq as if he were “the new
CEO?”
Making room for
children of
America’s inn
Without helping vulnerable
children, the nation will suffer
A fiiend who shared this story described it as “the best sermon”
my dear fiiend and mentor Rev. William Sloane
CoflBn, Jr. “never preached.” It was Christmas Eve
and the pews at New York City’s Riverside Church
were packed. The Christmas pageant was under
way and had come to the point at which the
innkeeper was to turn away Mary and Joseph
with the resounding line, “There’s no room at the
Marian
Wright
Edelman
King
Never mind that no figure of the innkeeper actu
ally appears in scripture. We’ve all imagined him
delivering the message of no room, of inhospitality
to the baby Jesus and his parents. It seemed the
perfect part for Hm, an earnest youth of the con
gregation who has Down Syndrome. Only one line to remember;
“There’s no room at the inn!” He had practiced it again and again
with his parents and with the pageant director. He
seemed to have mastered it.
So there he stocxl at the altar of the sanctuary
bathrobe costume firmly belted over his broad stom
ach, as Mary and Joseph made their way down the
center aisle. They approached him, said their lines
as rehearsed, and waited for his reply Tim’s par
ents, the pageant director, and the whole congrega
tion almost leaned forward as if willing him to
remember his line.
“There’s no room at the inn!” Hm boomed out, just as rehearsed.
But then, as Mary and Joseph turned on cue to travel further, Tim
suddenly yelled ‘Wait!” They tumecfback, startled, and looked at
him in surprise.
‘You can stay at my house!” he called.
Well, Tim had effectively preached the sermon at Riverside
Church that Christmas Eve. Bill Chfifin strode to the pulpit, said
“Amen,” and sat down. It was the best sermon he never preached.
For Christians, another Christmas season has come to a dose.
People of all faiths are reflecting on things done and left undone
during the past year and making resolutions for change in the new
one. When, oh when will we individually and collectivdy as con
gregations, as communities, and as a nation resolve to stop saying
to our children, “There’s no room at the inn?’ When will we, like
Tim, start saying, ‘You can stay at my house?” When will we say
to the poor, hungry, and homeless children, ‘Wait! We’ll make a
place for you at America’s table of plenty?’
How long until we say to children whose parents are working
hard every day trying to keep food on the table and a roof over
their heads 6 or whose families were poor before a terrible hurri
cane struck, and even poorer after they lost everything in the
storm - ‘We will help you escape poverty?’ ‘We’ll catch you in our
safety net until your family is able to provide for you again?” And
when will we ensure that no child is without health coverage?
In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also delivered a CTuistmas
Eve sermon. In “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” given at
Ebenezer Baptist Church on his last Christmas Eve, Dr. King
reminded us one of the things “we must be concerned about if we
are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is die nonvi
olent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is
somebody because he is a child of God - made in His image, and
therefore must be respected as such.”
He also reflected on the “I Have A Dream” speech he had given
at the March on Washington four years earlier, and how he had
already begun seeing his dream turning into a nightmare as he
watched current events unfolding. However, Dr. King refused to
give up his conviction that our nation (X)uld change; “I still have a
dream today that one day justice will roll down like water, and
righteousness like a mighty stream. I still have a dream today that
in all of our state houses and dty halls men will be elected to go
there who will do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with
their (k)d — With this faith we will be able to speed up the day
when there will be peace on earth and good will toward men.”
Is the day of good will toward all still coming? As CTiristians cel
ebrate the miracle of the incarnation — the belief that (jod actual
ly came to live among us as a child -1 also hope we can honor Him
by raising a mi^ty voice for justice and protection for all the chil
dren who are sacred and made in Ckxl’s image but left behind in
poverty and hopelessness.
As we end the holy season of CTiristmas, Hanukkah, and
Kwanzaa, look ahead to Eid al-Adha, and enter the time of year of
new beginnings, let us repent and reaffirm our commitment to
building a nation where all children find room in our inn.
Bennettsville, S.C., native MARIAN WRIGHT EDEIMAN is president and
founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.
Impeachment
talk makes the
rounds in D.C.
By Ken Guggenheim
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — It’s an explosive word tliat fadtxl
fiom the Ameiican political ledcon aftei- Bill Clinton's
presidency But, cautiously, a few Democrtits ajv
whispeiing it again.
Impeachment.
Could President George W. Bush be im{)eaclietl -
tried by Congress and possibly removed fioni office -
for letting an intelligence agency spy in the UniU*^
States without getting court appnwal?
That appeal's liighly unlikely It’s debatable
whether Bush broke any laws. Any decision to
impeach would have to be made by Congiess, wliich
is controlled by Bush’s Republican Party And if
Democrats pressed the matter, tliey would be taking
a huge pwlitical gamble that could backfii'e.
That hasn’t stopped a handful of Democrats fiom
raising the matter. Sen. Barbara Boxei” of California
released a letter asking four pi'esidential scholars for
their opinion on whetlier Bush had committed an
impeachable offense. Rep. Jolm Conyere of Micliigaii,
the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee,
introduced legislation calling on Congress to deter
mine whether thei'e are grounds for impeachment.
Some Americans have written to their local newspa
pers, demanding impeachment.
Most Democrats, though, have been silent.
Under the U.S. Constitution and Americmi political
tradition, impeachments are not taken lightly.
Presidents cannot be removed because they do not
have the support of Congress. They cannot be
removed for incompetence. They can be removed only
if they have been convicted of "treason, bribery or
other high crimes and misdemeanoi's.”
The White House insists that Bush had the legal
authority to allow the National Security Agency to
intercept communications within the United States.
Many Democrats - and some Republicans - disagiee.
But even if Bush lacked the authority, it’s not clear he
committed a crime.
“This was an error of political judgment,” wrote
Cliaries Krauthanmier, a conservative columnist.
“And only the most brazen and reckless paitisan
could pretend it is anything approaching a high crime
and misdemeanor.”
The American CiTvil Liberties Union, a New York-
based rights group critical of the Bush administra
tion, has called for the appointment of an indepc»n-
dent special counsel to investigate whether Bush vio
lated wiretapping laws. It took out full-page newspa
per ads comparing Bush to former President Richaixl
M. Nixon, who resigned in 1974 to avoid impeach
ment after being accused of covering up crimes in the
Watergate scandal.
But a special prosecutor cannot initiate impeach
ment proceedings. That power rests with the House
of Representatives, where Republicans have a 231-
202 advantage over Democrats.
Democrats could conceivably win conti-ol of the
House in November elections and then vote to
impeach Bush - that is, to put him on trial. But tlie
trial would be held in the Senate, where Republicans
have a 55-44 advantage, with one Democratic-lean
ing independent. Even if Democrats win control of
that chamber, they wouldn’t have the two-thirds vote
needed to convict and remove the president from
office.
The numbers are only part of the problem for
Democrats. Impeachment carries huge political risks.
Bush clearly won the 2004 election. His popularity
has fallen, but Democratic lawmakers aren’t esj)e-
cially popular either. Many voters would view
impeachment as political vindictiveness by the losing
party _ and they could punish Democrats at the p6lls.
The Republicans’ weak performance in the 1998 con
gressional election was seen as a backlash to their
efforts to impeach Democratic President Bill CTinton.
CTinton’s impeachment stemmed fiom chaiges he
lied under oath about a sexual affair. The House
voted to impeach, but Republicans lacked the votes to
convict him in the Senate. After a monthlong trial,
not even a simple majority could be mustered to
remove ftie president.
Some observers say Bush’s failings as president are
of far greater consequence than anything CTinton had
done. But Clinton’s misconduct was self-serving. So
was Nixon’s. Bush’s actions, right or wrong, appear to
be based on national security concerns. He says he
was trying to prevent terrorist attacks. That could
make it harder for Democrats to persuade the public
that impeachment is necessary
KEN GUGGENHEIM is the Associated Press' World
Service's Washington editor.
hy Aaron McGnuler