Finance Matters

Archive for February 7th, 2010

We caught Sarah Palin on Fox News Sunday today.  She had a home court advantage, obviously (she works for FOX), but she has vastly improved a key weakness over the past 18 months–her one-on-one interview skills.

Questions that, previously, would have annoyed or stumped her, she now easily deflects and then uses to go on the attack (which she has always been good at).  Every sentence is peppered with the buzzwords that send her fans into a tizzy–”conservative,” “family,” “country,” “independent,” “elitists,” “heartland,” “big government.”  Her positioning vis-a-vis the campaign she is already running is perfect: Yes, of course she’ll run for president–if it’s the right thing for the country.  (Much better to do it for the country than to appear to actually want to do it).

Sarah Palin has also been able to quickly put the whole quitting thing behind her.  Now that she can handle being asked questions, it’s not surprising she’s already the Republican front-runner.

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See Also:

• Meet The New Sarah Palin
• Sarah Palin Paid $100,000 To Send National Tea-Party Convention Into Spasms Of Glee*
• BUSTED: Sarah Palin Caught Scribbling Speech Notes On Her Hand

UPDATE: We spoke with a member of Governor Paterson’s communications team who denies that the governor is planning to resign. The official confirmed that a New York Times story is in the works but says it will not run Monday.

Gawker got an on-the-record comment from Paterson’s deputy communications director Marissa Shoenstein, who said: “There is absolutely zero truth to these rumors. The governor is not resigning.”  She also denied that there’s anything particularly scandalous in the NYT story:

Reached by phone, Shorenstein also claimed that the story isn’t coming out tomorrow or “any time soon” and called it a “profile” that’s going to be running in the Metro section of the New York Times. She says more than one Times writers will be bylined on the piece and that her office has been in contact with them and the governor is cooperating with the piece. Finally, when asked whether or not anything that’s going to be written in the forthcoming Times piece on Gov. Paterson could be described as scandalous, a “bombshell,” or anything that might find itself in the public’s general interest,” Shorenstein gave a flat-out denial: “No.”

Original post: This past week, a rumor emerged that the New York Times is working on a huge bombshell with plans to “Spitzerize” New York governor David Paterson.

Several media outlets have reported on these rumors.

Elizabeth Benjamin at The Daily News describes the report as “much worse” than the governor’s previous admission of an affair with a state employee, though she declines to name NYT by name.

We’ve now heard from a single source familiar with the goings on at the Governor’s office that the story will likely drop on Monday, and that the governor’s resignation will follow.

We’ve not yet confirmed the timing of the article or the governor’s future plans.

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See Also:

• New York Gov. Paterson Proposes $420 Million For Film, TV Tax Credits
• Governor Paterson Goes Hoover: Delays Payments To Local Schools To Keep State Solvent
• Governor Paterson May Save New York’s TV And Film Tax Credits

From Matt Moore of the AP:

FRANKFURT (AP) — The chief executive of German software company SAP AG, Leo Apotheker, has resigned after his contract was not renewed and two new co-CEOs have been named, the company said Sunday.

Neither the company nor Apotheker, who has been with company since 1988 and CEO since 2008, said why the decision was made not to renew his contract.

The company’s supervisory board, the German equivalent to a U.S. board of directors, did appoint two co-CEOs: Bill McDermott, head of field organization; and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development. Both men are on the company’s executive board.

In a brief statement, SAP, based in Walldorf, said its “supervisory board has reached a mutual agreement” not to extend the contract.

McDermott joined SAP in 2002 and oversees global field operations for the company. He joined its executive board in 2008. Hagemann Snabe joined SAP in 1990.

SAP also said Vishal Sikka, its chief technology officer, was appointed to the company’s executive board and its co-founder, Hasso Plattner, who chairs the supervisory board, “will continue to play a strong role in advising the new leaders on technology and product development.”

Plattner said the executive board’s new setup would let the company “better align product innovation with customer needs.”

Last month, SAP, whose programs help companies do back-office work such as payroll, inventory management and accounting, said its fourth-quarter net income fell 12 percent to €727 million ($995.3 million) because of difficult market conditions, but said it expected an improvement this year.

Shares of SAP closed Friday at €33.38, down 1.2 percent.

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See Also:

• Oracle, HP, SAP Look Online For Growth
• SAP Snaps Up Carbon Management Firm
• IBM And SAP Make Nice With New Cloud Computing Agreement

You can stop making fun of Barack Obama for his dependence on a teleprompter. Sarah Palin — the biggest hero of the right — was caught by AP photographers with cliff notes on her hand.

See on her left hand there?

Maybe not. That’s okay. HuffPo zoomed in and cropped it closer:

We can read the top word, energy, pretty clearly.

We also see the word “tax” in there.

We’re not sure what the other ones are. Any thoughts?

And if you’re still not convinced. Mediaite has the video of her looking down at her hand during a Q&A. Watch around the :50 mark, and you’ll see it’s pretty clear.

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See Also:

• Sarah Palin Paid $100,000 To Send National Tea-Party Convention Into Spasms Of Glee*
• Meet The New Sarah Palin
• Palin For President?

It was apparently the most open secret of the Prop 8 trial in San Francisco.

The presiding judge, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is gay.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate has the full report, and the article cites many sources who say they do not expect his sexual orientation to influence his opinion. 

Walker was appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1989 and has never “taken paints to disguise — or advertise — his orientation,” the article said.

The judge in this landmark gay rights litigation being gay is quite ironic, but it isn’t the first eye-brow raising trial Walker has been involved in.

He came under heavy criticism from the gay community for representing, when he was in private practice, the U.S. Olympic Committee in its successful lawsuit that sought to prevent the Gay Olympics from infringing on the USOC name.

“Life is full of irony,” Walker told the SFGate when they reminded him of that suit. Walker is not publicly commenting on the Prop 8 trial while it’s pending.

Some will undoubtedly make noise about potential bias because the judge is gay. But, two things.

Judges bring to the bench all sorts of life experiences that could potentially cause them to be “biased” on any number of issues. But they are judges, and their job is to decide on the law. It’s refreshing that no one with any knowledge seems to be saying they expect Walker to do anything less. (As we’ve mentioned before, 5-4 decisions along political lines are a little frustrating.)

And second, we doubt anyone who would dare conclude he might make a certain decision because he is gay would have had the same concerns if he were straight. Would we assume he could not make a fair decision about Prop 8 and gay marriage because he was heterosexual? Doubt it.

We think a quote in the article from a judge who did not wish to be named, but who counts himself as a friend of Walker’s, sums it up nicely:

SFGate: [The fellow judge] said he had spoken with Walker and was concerned that “people will come to the conclusion that (Walker) wants to conceal his sexuality.”

“He has a private life and he doesn’t conceal it, but doesn’t think it is relevant to his decisions in any case, and he doesn’t bring it to bear in any decisions,” said the judge, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the Prop. 8 trial.

“Is it newsworthy?” he said of Walker’s orientation, and laughed. “Yes.”

(The picture is not of the actual judge, but of an actor playing him in the Prop 8 reenactments available on YouTube.)

Thanks to Barbara Raab (@bbabbo) for pointing out the article, via Twitter. 

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See Also:

• Prop 8 Trial Banned From YouTube Is Now Back — Via Dramatic Reenactment!
• Prop 8 Testimony Ends, Deliberations Loom
• The Gay Marriage Trial Could Be Televised