Stranger than fiction: governance doings that approach the fantastical.

• Author: Kaback, Hoffer
• Position: QUIDDITIES - Column

IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL English class, we were at one point required to write about "an unforgettable character."

Creating a fictional character, I figured, would be way too hard (and way too much work). Why not just write about an actual kid from the neighborhood? So I wrote and submitted a composition that recounted three or four bizarre incidents involving this kid. I had witnessed them all. Everything I described in the paper was true.

When it was graded and returned, I saw that the teacher, Mr. Silver, had written this comment on the last page: "Somehow your character doesn't quite jell."

What was he getting at? I wasn't entirely sure. I asked my mother, a former high school English teacher.

"He doesn't believe your character."

"But he's a real person," I protested. "Every story happened exactly as described. He's an 'unforgettable character' because his actual behavior is so screwy."

Now that the year 2004 is history, it is instructive to examine recent governance events through the lens of Mr. Silver's critical approach to creative writing assignments.

Let us assume that those events have been transformed into movie treatments and pitched to a middle-level movie exec for possible production.

1. Disney

   Thumbnail sketch of the Disney melodrama:

   (a) The CEO-character brings in as his No. 2 a hugely successful, immensely powerful Hollywood personage who proceeds, within short order and notwithstanding his prior success, to demonstrate utter incompetence.

   (b) When the No. 2 first joins the company, the general counsel and chief financial officer pointedly inform him that, despite his title, neither has any intention of reporting to him.

   (c) The CEO tells directors that his No. 2 is a liar, a fabricator, and a psychopath; the No. 2 remains in place.

   (d) That No. 2 claims that he and the CEO were best friends ("I loved this guy like a brother") but the CEO denies anywhere remotely near that level of bonding ("I liked him. He was one of my friends"). [Wait a minute: Is this a business movie or a teenie girl clique flick?]

   (e) The No. 2 finally exits and, as a party favor upon departure, receives a severance package, per contract, of some $140 million.

   (f) Even though the No. 2's job performance is characterized (by, for example, the general counsel) as negligent and incompetent, he is nevertheless handed that nine-figure package. Had, however, his performance been even worse, then he would not have received anything.

   Nutshell: A top executive's...