The report of another “corporate kleptocracy”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> is Remember <\/FONT>Richard Perle<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>? Oh, and let’s not forget the Compared to that amount, Perle’s take was chicken feed — a mere $3.1 million — on “an The polite honorific “Mr.” is a Times custom. The Hollinger report is much less polite, The report of another “corporate kleptocracy” is making news this morning. It’s not Kenny Boy’s Enron or Bunker Boy’s former company, Halliburton, or any of the no-bid contract players in Iraq. This time it’s Hollinger International, a media company formerly led by Conrad Black and F. David Radler with the connivance of a board of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-cH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmaking news this morning. It’s not Kenny Boy’s Enron or Bunker Boy’s former company,
\nHalliburton, or any of the no-bid contract players in Iraq. This time it’s Hollinger International, a
\nmedia company formerly led by Conrad Black and F. David Radler with the connivance of a board
\nof directors featuring — you guessed it — none other than that neoconservative for all seasons,
\nRichard Perle, “who is excoriated in the strongest terms” for “putting his own interests above
\nthose of Hollinger’s shareholders.”<\/P>
\n
\nThe right-wing ideologue who advocates what might be termed a holy crusade in the
\nMiddle East and elsewhere? The intellectual guru of the “axis-of-evil” hardliners in foreign policy?
\nThe guy who used to be chairman of the private Defense Policy Board, which advises Rummy
\nBoy? The guy who stepped down as chairman and then resigned from that board altogether to
\navoid having his views associated with the administration’s or the Defense Department’s during
\nthe Nincompoop in Chief’s re-election campaign?<\/P>
\n
\nU.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former head of the Democratic National Committee
\nRobert Strauss and former U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Burt, who were let off
\nby the 513-page report “with little more than a rebuke” for showing their lack of curiosity
\nabout the “systematic looting”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> by Black
\nand Radler of “virtually all the company’s $400 million in earnings over seven years.”<\/P>
\n
\nunusual deal” that gave him and other insiders “a share of profits from good investments without
\nrequiring those amounts to be offset by losses from bad investments,” according to New York
\nTimes financial columnist Floyd Norris. But the downside for the company was much greater than
\nthat. As chairman of Hollinger’s Internet investing subsidiary, “Mr. Perle was responsible for
\n$63.6 million in Hollinger investments, on which the company lost a net $49
\nmillion,” Norris notes in his description of the report, which was filed as part of an attempt
\nby Hollinger to recover $1.25 billion from Black and others.<\/P>
\n
\nessentially calling Perle an incompetent and a thief who owes the company $5.4 million and maybe
\nmore. “Perle’s own description of his performance on the executive committee was stunning,” the
\nreport states, referring to a triumvirate that consisted of Black, Radler and Perle.
\nPerle admitted he often didn’t read documents presented to him but signed them anyway and
\nnever discussed them with his two cohorts, who stood to gain the most from them. The report
\nsays, according to Norris:<\/P>
\nIt is difficult to imagine a more flagrant abdication of duty than a director
\nrubber-stamping transactions that directly benefit a controlling shareholder without any thought,
\ncomprehension or analysis. In fact, many of the consents that Perle signed as an executive
\ncommittee member approved related-party transactions that unfairly benefited Black and Radler,
\nand cost Hollinger millions.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>So let’s remember: This is the guy who has
\nhad “profound influence over Bush policies and officials in the competition for the hearts of
\nthe president and his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice,” according to Dana Milbank of
\nThe Washington Post. This is the guy whose reckless advice to the nation on how to win the war
\non terror is called “An End to
\nEvil.”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> Coming from a guy with his own evil touch, a guy who
\nhas put the touch on thousands of shareholders to the tune of millions of dollars, that’s chutzpah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"