THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

HOUSEWIFE AND NUTCASE | 2007-05-06

In "Citizen Kane" around 1940 the reporter trying to find out what "Rosebud" meant could not get an appointment with the new president, the CEO, of Kane's old newspapers. But the Chairman of the Board, the only person who outranked the CEO, immediately granted him an interview.

When the reporter asked about this, which to him seemed strange, he was told, "He's the president of this outfit, he's got no time. I'm Chairman of the Board. I got nothing BUT time."

After almost seventy years the media and the Practical Men STILL do not GET it.

The press never understood Reagan's forty-hour week. To repeat, Reagan had been governor of California for eight years. On paper he was the President, the Chief Operating Officer. In reality he was Chairman of the Board.

Nixon had already described in his biography how long it took HIM to learn this lesson after HE became president. The media didn't notice. They STILL don't get it.

As one commenter explained, the media are just plain OUT of it.

Thank God!

I described how my sister and I won, as far as I know, and I know a LOT about it, an unprecedented victory on my disability. She was a former medical secretary, a master's degree, ordained-by-the-bishop big church administrator. She was de facto manager of our brick plant. But she, IN ALL HONESTY, says all that was LONG ago and she is a housewife.

This is not modesty. She would not trade the hair on one of her grandchildren's head for all that medical secretary, a master's degree, ordained-by-the-bishop big church administrator, de facto manager stuff . She IS a housewife.

Eat your hearts out, Women's Lib!

Her favorite joke about the two of us beating the system was my comment:

"Pretty good for a housewife and a nutcase!"

When we did this, I was truly in a psychotically helpless state and that was what the forensic psychologists were PROVING. But it took us three years, and we WON. I was, as is slightly unusual for people in that the state I was in, indispensable. She was CEO, I was Chairman.

I will never be back in full fighting form again. But I am certainly not near the state I was in at that time. So when I say we can win with me as your Chairman of the Board, I am speaking from experience.

When she can dig up the time, SysOps acts as our CEO. But we are franchising. SysOps wants others to become CEOs. We're head-hunting.

It is true that "There's always room at the top." But people don't UNDERSTAND what that means. In business or on the Hill or anywhere else, there is always a shortage of the KIND OF PEOPLE who MAKE IT at the top.

Reagan used to interview people for high positions in his Administration AFTER he had read up on that "expert's" specialty. Said "intellectual" would come in and Reagan would play that dumb-but-friendly Irishman image the media swallowed whole. Said Expert would give him the Full Treatment.

After the interview, Reagan would say, "That guy would be a DISASTER. Who else have we got?"

Reagan was looking for someone at the top. There's always room up there, but the people who can MAKE IT there are few and far between.

They made a hit movie out of the book, "How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying."

It was a comedy.