Robert Reich: Carly Fiorina's Hypocrisy

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/32411-focus-carly-fiorinas-hypocrisy

Hypocrisy? Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has been a hawk on Iran – criticizing Obama for his willingness to relax economic sanctions; claiming the sanctions are “unraveling fast” which she terms a “dangerous development,” warning that Europe is rushing to open the Iranian economy, and accusing Iran of cheating on the sanctions.

Yet when she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard (according to today's Bloomberg News), the company circumvented strict export sanctions on Iran (imposed by Bill Clinton in 1995) by selling hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of products to Iran through a European subsidiary and a Middle Eastern distributor – allowing HP to obtain 41 percent of the Iranian market for printers by 2007. HP’s general manager for the Middle East was quoted as saying, "Iran is a big market for Hewlett-Packard printers.” Moreover, during her tenure at HP, the corporation’s in-house lobbyists pressed Congress to relax economic sanctions, presumably so HP could sell even more to Iran.

Running a business is different from running for president. But if you’re making your business experience the cornerstone of your argument for why you should be president, some consistency might be expected.

[Unknown Beatle]

1. "some consistency might be expected."

Doesn't the writer realize she's a republican? Republicans don't have consistency. All republicans do is tell lies and half-truths. For example, Carly Fiorina tells the truth when she says she was CEO of Hewlett Packard, but she lies and distorts the facts about her accomplishments at HP.

[Roy Rolling]

2. 100% Correct

Most wear inconsistency and hypocrisy as a badge of honor. Being able to thumb their noses at common sense and adult behavior is their trademark for attracting similarly shallow people like themselves.

[SheilaT]

3. This underscores exactly why someone who

successfully runs a business -- not that Fiorina did that -- is so unlike what a President of this country does, that we should all, regardless of our personal political convictions, be extremely wary of any candidate with only a background in business.

And here's something else: women are often held back from holding high positions in business because of the belief that since they never played sports in high school or college, or it least didn't play on the guys' teams, they don't know how to be team players, don't understand that business is somehow just another version of such sports. But cheating of some kind is often highly valued, and it can be what wins games. So in reality, if most women don't know how to cheat, they'll be bad at running a business.

However, you have to admire Ms. Fiorina for doing exactly the kind of cheating and getting around laws that is so admired.

Which is also exactly why she or Trump or anyone else who has run businesses would make terrible Presidents.

[smirkymonkey]

5. +1000

You make some very good points here!

[AlbertCat]

16. anyone else who has run businesses would make terrible Presidents.

Dubya ran businesses into the ground....

and was a most terrible president.

So business acumen is not even a requirement with the "running a business" statement.


Dick Cheney nearly bankrupted Halliburton before he became "president". He really sucked too. But at least Halliburton got to serve past due meals to our troops in the field!... when they weren't electrocuting them in the shower.

GOP CEOs..... sheesh!

[SheilaT]

23. Over thirty years ago I took

some business classes at the university I was attending, thinking I'd get a business minor. What bothered me the most was that the classes implied very strongly that if you could run one business, you could run any business, that the specifics of a particular business simply didn't matter.

As someone who has worked in several different fields (always at an entry-level position. Never did finish that degree) I know it's simply not true. Workers are not widgets, are not interchangeable things to be plugged in. Having actual skills that are pertinent to the job really do matter. But the very vast majority of people at the upper levels of all business have never worked in that field as an entry-level employee.

The show "Undercover Boss" is quite interesting in that invariably the bosses just had no clue what their low-level people had to do every day, how difficult so many of those jobs were, how steep the learning curve actually is even in jobs that are just menial labor. It would be interesting to go back to those companies six months to a year after the show was filmed and see what if any real changes have been made.

[Hortensis]

19. Excellent points! "Be extremely wary of...only a background in business."

[DirkGently]

4. Where is Fiorina's appeal supposed to come from?

Usually, when a Republican corporatist runs on the theory America should be managed like a corporation, they at least have some record of running a corporation well. Or honestly. Or successfully.

She wasn't good at business. Isn't good at speaking. Has no interesting ideas.

Does she literally just have time and money on her hands and nothing better to do?

[smirkymonkey]

6. Seriously, the woman has absolutely nothing going for her except $$$

She's either power mad or bored out of her mind.

[erronis]

11. And don't forget the face that would launch one thousand ships.

Not to encourage this line of thinking but she must believe (like the Duck's Ass) that she's attractive...

[eridani]

17. I've always been grateful that the HP scientific instruments division spun off as--

--Agilent before she got a chance to fuck it up too.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. She was the only one on that stage tonight who sounded like she had an IQ over room temperature.

I'm not a fan, to say the least, but she handled herself fairly well in answering questions and sounding intelligent among a field of mentally stunted doofi.

I'm not sure if that's a plus or minus, with the GOP base, but my objective analysis is her performance tonight probably helped her significantly.

[Hortensis]

20. Objective analysis is good. :) And I agree.

[DirkGently]

22. Ugh. Disagree. Thought she sounded like an angry robot.

Florina was just launching pre-loaded soundbites wherever she could, like the rest of them. Spitting out ludicrous "numbers of Navy ships" we supposedly need to not be wimps or whatever and other idiotic RW talking points.

And she re-did her "Hillary lied" bit beat for beat, and sounded crazy doing it, in my opinion.

She seemed over-rehearsed and wound to teeth-clenching rigidity. Tracy Flick's older, angrier sister.


Blech.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. well none of them sounded like anyone I would want getting within 5 miles of the White House

unless on a guided tour.

[DirkGently]

28. People are saying she "won."

Maybe given the general silliness of the rest of the group?

I did think Rand Paul going after Bush for defending the Iraq war left a mark. And it's a conversation I didn't think we'd see Republicans have.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. I was glad he called Christie out on his "i'm gonna put all the potheads in prison" crap, too.

Wouldnt vote for him, but he was right on those two things.

[DirkGently]

30. Funny seeing Jeb run from that too

Suddenly no one wants to be the one denying marijuana to ... children who might need it?

The world is definitely changing a bit

[Warren DeMontague]

31. Honestly, i think two things are at play- one, polls show support for legalization.

And two, this can't be overstated- Colorado, God bless 'em, is a swing state.

If legalization was confined to only blue west coast states there would probably be a lot more enthusiasm to use it as a political football.

As it is, the hard core prohibitionists are kind of screwed, politically.

And even beyond recreational weed, there is much wider acceptance of the benefits medical mj can provide. Sanjay Gupta in cnn may have played a role similar to how Walter Cronkite was to Vietnam. The anti mmj drug warriors lost middle america in one fell swoop.

[wordpix]

24. you didn't notice her statement about cutting up babies to rip out their brains to sell?

That's when any semblance of my thinking that Carly has 1/2 a brain flipped a switch. She is now Crazy Cruella to me.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Oh, I noticed. I also noticed that CNN, in their 'fact checking the debate'

noted that her crap about planned parenthood was a misrepresentation, then went on to label it as "true but misleading"



She was lying through her teeth, but veracity wasn't my point here. Don't imagine that when I say she sounded smarter than the mental midgets she was surrounded by, it's anything like an endorsement.

[lark]

7. Duh, she's a Repug, it comes with the territory.

Cheney's Haliburton did illegal sales to Iran and now he's bellyaching everywhere about how bad it is that Obama and the world are doing business with that same country. They're both just pissed that they aren't getting in on the action, that's all either one of them cares about.

[navarth]

8. THAT is damning.

Good info for later, thank you Mr. Reich

[bullwinkle428]

9. Wow, almost like Trump calling China the equivalent of "the Great Satan" after making

gobs and gobs of money outsourcing his textiles manufacturing to Chinese factories.

Anyone starting to see a theme emerge here?

[erronis]

12. Theme: Something like "screw little you, more for me"?

And the little people will come up with some rationalization to vote for those that will hurt them the most.

Any way we can speed up evolution a bit?

[wordpix]

25. I would love Bernie to be our candidate - he'd rip up their corporate send-the-jobs-overseas-

and screw-the- sanctions asses

[sarge43]

10. Hypocrisy is the one thing Repugs do well

Oh yeah, they're not bad at selling their souls.

[ut oh]

13. No surprize there

It's only bad when Dems do it....

[4lbs]

14. It's simple: Iran is ok when you can make money off them. Otherwise, screw'em! nt

[gratuitous]

15. Not only that

But with the current Republican mania for scuttling the Iran agreement, the United States would be the only nation sanctioning Iran, a policy box we just got out of - at long last - with Cuba. The only people hurt by our embargo with Cuba were American companies that wanted to trade directly with Cuba. Other companies that didn't have a problem playing fast and loose with the sanctions were trading with Cuba as if they were headquartered in any other country in the world.

Yeah, don't tell me about the sterling morality of America's captains of industry. They're greedy crooks who never miss a trick.

[Roland99]

21. Arms (Reagan)...Printers (Fiorina)

same thing