Strident Response to Stupid Accident--and My Client's Craziness

The Vice President's accidental shooting of a fellow hunter this weekend was unfortunate. I suppose the fact that the White House failed to quickly acknowledge what happened is symptomatic of the Bush administration's climate of secrecy. But that doesn't both me a great deal...I don't mean the climate of secrecy, I mean the fact that Cheney's attack on a fellow hunter wasn't immediately acknowledged. Assuming the guy survives without serious health problems, the incident will serve only as fodder for late night humor and web-based humor...and I wil laugh heartily.

What worries me is the strident responses by some Democrats to the situation...they're making a big mistake by playing this incident up to be more than it is. I am a Bush-loather and am far to the left of most Democrats...I am fervently in the corner of unseating all Republicans and support many Democrats. But I am also conscious that the Democrats' uproar about Cheney is apt to come back to bite them. They will be painted as irrational screamers who will blame Republicans for anything and who will use a simple accident as reason to launch partisan attacks. What the idiot Democrats don't understand is that strident screams at everything Republican will do no good...especially if they do not articulate a rational, from-the-heart, platform that addresses the core values that Democrats claim as their own. If they don't do it, someone will. Maybe it's time for a new party to fill the void that the Democratic party was left with when Bill Clinton left office.

Client Craziness
One of our clients is having its annual conference in New York City in October. The decision to go there was made despite the fact that it will be extremely expensive, not only for us but for the members. Once the decision was made, though, the client decided to do it up right...they budgeted $50,000 for speaker fees. This is for a meeting that probably will attract fewer than 100 people. The registration fee is less than $500 per person (and multiple registrants from the same company get a big discount), so this is going to be a money losing meeting. I keep telling the group they can't keep doing this.

All that notwithstanding, they have an interesting lineup of speakers:

• David Bach (author of bunches of books on personal money management, including Finish Rich)
• Paco Underhill (very big name in retail consulting)
• Randy Cohen (Ethicist for the New York Times)

Today is Valentine's Day, so I will take my wife out to a nice dinner. Blogging this during a break at the office...probably no more for today. I'll write again tomorrow.