Letter to Salon - Love Him or Leave Business

[bobquasit]

Couldn't resist writing a letter to Salon in response to a recent short piece. HUD Secretary Alphonse Jackson recently boasted that he'd cancelled a government contract with a minority contractor when the contractor mentioned that he didn't like President Bush.

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson says. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

This was simply too amazing for me to pass up, so:

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The most amazing thing...

The thing that amazed me the most about the original DBJ article was the number of highly-placed idiots who felt that Jackson's actions were not only defensible, but legitimate.

"Jackson is right; what possessed the contractor to criticize the president in a business setting? But what possessed Jackson to say he's not going to complete the business transaction?" Jillson said.

"Jillson" being Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, which apparently doesn't include the First Amendment in its curricula. Perhaps it was removed to make room for Blame the Victim 101.

Rod Bailey with The Staubach Co., who put the REEC event together, said Jackson was simply telling it like it is.

"It's politics at its finest," he said. "If you talk to other government officials, they would have similar stories. The same thing holds true in business. If you don't like Roger Staubach, you're not going to work at The Staubach Co."

The difference being that the Staubach Co. is presumably owned by Roger Staubach, serves its stockholders or owner(s) rather than the general public, and doesn't have a charter specifically enshrining freedom of speech for its members.

Which, of course, the USA does.

Unless this country turned into the United States of Bush (a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bush family) when I wasn't looking, of course. In which case I am totally in the wrong, and may expect to be righteously and legally "disappeared" for lèse majesté at any moment.

Comments

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

But Jillson was criticizing Jackson for cancelling the contract. In other words he was agreeing with you that Jackson did the wrong thing. If you are annoyed with Jillson for the first half of his statement, I'd say I have to agree with him. Outside of working in politics or the media, the businessplace is not where one should be making political commentary, nor commenting on religion or other touchy topics. Sure if it's just you and your work budies then go right ahead, but it's not professional to do it when having a meeting with others, like say your customers.

Yeah, sure, the 1st means you can't be arrested for it, and that's all to the good. But you still shouldn't do it, especially when you aren't sure that your customer will appreciate your commentary. It's just not good business. But, yeah, I'd also agree that it's not good government to be pulling contracts for it, either.

Both sides of this one are idiots, IMO.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Jillson criticised both sides pretty equally, as far as I could tell. But to me, that's like criticizing a rape victim and her rapist equally. Makes no sense. And as for Jackson, cancelling a government contract for political reasons is illegal, while criticizing Bush to one of his appointees is merely unwise. And I'm damn sure that plenty of contractors criticized the hell out of Bill Clinton when he was in office, without penalty.