This article was originally written as a response to a recommendation from a friend to read Lee Iacocca’s most recent book entitled, “Where Have All the Leaders Gone??” In his recommendation, this person wrote, ”You may not like the conclusions, but these are the facts.”

The recent exchanges about Hillary Clinton and the Black Panthers offer a reminder that it is important to check facts before making public pronouncements.  Urban legends are often accepted because they are frequently repeated without checking the facts.

For the last 10 years, I have had the privilege to study and teach the principles of Lean Six Sigma in the business community, public sector, non-profit environment, etc.  It is about applying science to business. While we usually start with tribal knowledge and expert opinion, even the most strongly held beliefs must be tested with data to validate the theory.  One of my favorite quotes is from the 19th century humorist, Artemis Ward. He says:

“It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble.
It’s the things we know that just ain’t so.”

I couldn’t help but think about the above as I read the first paragraphs from Iacocca’s book.  Here are some of Iacocca’s statements from just the third & fourth paragraphs and some questions/comments I have about the data to support his claims:

The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, …

Questions/comments: Just what portion of the Constitution did he ignore?  If he has violated the Constitution, why has no serious opposition leader pursued impeachment.  As much as the Democrats hate George Bush, I am sure they would pursue impeachment if they believed they had any real evidence or justification.  If they have no legal basis, it is easier to just keep repeating the accusation for purely political purposes.

tap our phones…

Questions/comments:  Again, where is the evidence?  Is there even a single case that has been found where the DIA listened in on innocent civilian conversations?  With all the flak, I am certain that if such a single incident had been found, it would have been front page news in the New York Times and the network newscasts.

and lead us to war with a pack of lies.

Questions/comments:  Though often repeated in the main stream media, where is the evidence?  True – there were statements about weapons of mass destruction that did not prove to be true.  Unfortunately that intelligence was incorrect.  How many resolutions were there at the UN?  Why did they pass all those resolutions if there were no weapons of mass destruction?  Could it be that members of the Security Council also were convinced that Sadam had such weapons.  Even Sadam refused to state that he did not have WMD.  The UK had independent evidence that he had WMD.  There is also testimony from some of Sadam’s leaders that they also believed that he had such weapons.

Key congressional leaders saw the same intelligence and came to the same conclusion of the President.  The prior Clinton administration strongly asserted that Sadam had WMD.  Key Democratic leaders in Congress supported then president Clinton’s assertion about the WMD and the threat that it represented to the US.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s independent review of the intelligence before the war found NO indication that the Administration had tried to manipulate intelligence or pressure the CIA to distort their own estimates.

And, of course, the multiple UN resolutions and the congressional authorization for war with Iraq were not based solely on WMD.

Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy.

Questions/comments:  I believe the tax cuts were across the board, weren’t they?  Everyone that paid federal income tax received a rate reduction.  Critics like Iacocca like to jump between percentage rates and dollar amounts to distort the picture.  It is a fact that the upper 1% of taxpayers pay a greater percentage of the federal tax burden today than they did before the tax cuts were enacted.  Contrary to what Iacocca would suggest, the tax cuts have produced record revenues to the treasury of the US.  The deficit is a problem – not because of tax cuts, but – because of uncontrolled spending by Congress (with both Republicans and Democrats sharing blame) and the fact that the President would not veto budget-busting spending bills.

As a direct result of the tax cuts, our nation is enjoying record economic prosperity by any objective measure.  Unemployment is at record lows.  Employment is at record highs.  Home ownership is at record highs.  The DOW is at record highs.  The GDP has experienced consistent positive growth.

The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs.

Questions/comments:  Just how many business leaders have we seen in handcuffs?  I can think of a few, including Martha Stewart.  How many business leaders are there in this country?  What percentage of them have been convicted of any crime?  The NYSE has approximately 3,000 companies listed and the NASDAQ has over 5,000.  Not counting the American Stock Exchange and other exchanges, if Iacocca could list eight companies with “guys in handcuffs”  that would translate into only 1/10 of 1% – hardly a statistically significant number.  The fact that we spend so much print space and air time on these miscreants probably says more about the media than it does about the state of corporate culture.

The fact that even an extremely small percentage of business leaders are crooks is disappointing, but it does not discourage me about business leaders overall.  In fact, I am encouraged that our laws and systems actually work to catch the bad guys.

A question I have for Iacocca – Just how many attacks have we had in the US since the attack of 9/11/01?  Do you think this is an accident?  Or, do you believe that Al-Qaeda would not attack us on our soil if it had the chance?  Will you not grant the President any credit for protecting us against further attacks for almost six years now.

Iacocca was surely a charismatic CEO.  There is still considerable debate whether the Congress should have bailed out Chrysler, however I do commend Iacocca for repaying the loan ahead of schedule and for being the voice of PR for Chrysler during his tenure as CEO.  Unfortunately, we don’t know how the final chapter of Chrysler will be written.  Whatever he did for the company, he certainly did not leave it in a position to be a successful independent competitor in the global marketplace.

As I tried to read the book excerpt, I kept stopping to look for any support for his statements, even a few examples that he might cite, but I found almost none.

If I am going to change my viewpoint, I am afraid that I am going to need something more substantive than a regurgitation of the “MoveOn.org” or “Dailykos.com” websites.  Just as urban legends do not become true just because they are oft repeated on the web or in print, unsupported accusations about the President, and our country, do not become true because they are oft repeated on the web, or in the main stream media.

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