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April 06, 2005 at 08:00 PM
Although it was written in his defense, I have to wonder how much Maurice Greenberg, the recently deposed CEO of American International Group, appreciated the April 13 editorial in The Wall Street Journal that was headlined: “So Indict Him Then.”
Its kind of like a youngster telling the that, yeah, his best friend can take anything the bully can dish out. His sweating best friend, meanwhile.but you get the picture.
Actually the bully analogy is not far off the mark because the person that the Journal editorial was addressed to is New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Its a long time since I can remember agreeing with any editorial in the Journal, but with this one I did, at least in part.
Now, I want to make something perfectly clear, to quote someone else I never thought Id be quoting, and that is: I am not defending Hank Greenberg.
In fact, I want to repeat this for those readers who home in on one word or sentence in a column and ignore the rest: I am not defending Hank Greenberg.
I have no idea whether Mr. Greenberg was ever engaged in fraudulent activities. That is something that willand shouldbe determined by the numerous ongoing investigations.
But what I do defend is his right not to be tried on television by Spitzer. There very well may be drama in legal proceedings, but Im sure that even Attorney General Spitzer knows that they should not degenerate into mere entertainment.
So, when the AG goes on TV to be interviewed by George Stephanopoulos and bounces around words like “fraud” and “illegal” regarding alleged activities of Mr. Greenberg, then I think he has gone too far and overstepped the line.
