Don’t Play With Dead Snakes: What Should Washington Do Now That Gonzalez is Gone?
While an executive at FedEx, I had the privilege of working for Jim Barksdale, the company’s COO, and later CEO of Netscape. Aside from being a genuinely great human being, Barksdale was known for two things: 1) having the brains, talent, and courage to speak truth to anyone, including company founder, Fred Smith, and 2) a seemingly endless supply of down- home folksy expressions, some original, some borrowed, known as Barksdaleisms.
Two of those expressions, reputedly borrowed from Ross Perot were: 1) When you see a snake, kill it. Translation - when a clear and present problem arises, don’t form a task force to study it for 6 months, do something, now! 2) Don’t play with dead snakes. Translation - once you’re done dealing with the problem, let it go; don’t keep messing with it.
I was reminded of the 2nd expression, “Don’t play with dead snakes” the other day, when news broke that US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales had crashed and burned. Democrats, and more than a few Republican lawmakers could barely contain their glee upon learning that “Fredo” had finally been released to the workforce, as my steadfast partner, Richard has been known to put it.
If they have any sense (and decency) about them, they’ll button their lips and get back to the work that’s been piling up around Washington for several years. As I recall,, there is still a little unfinished business with a couple of shooting wars, no cogent energy policy, unprotected borders, and a health care crisis that is growing by the day.
There is a lesson here for the rest of us as well. When someone as unpopular as Gonzalez gets it, it is easy to join the crowd and pile on the guy. Yet, doing so serves absolutely no purpose, and is about as becoming as the the crowd of radical Muslims that inevitably gathers to dance on the still smoldering ruins of every one of our vehicles that gets destroyed by an IED. More to the point, every time we as leaders do that, we cause those around us to wonder if that’s how we would react if it were their turn in the barrel.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave us a Reply!