The CEO charmer who helped the Swift Boaters sink John Kerry has slunk back into the headlines. And the unimaginable has happened. He's turned even sleazier.
Remember the slimy "Swift Boat" attack ads on John Kerry back in the 2004 Presidential campaign? The Oklahoma City CEO who helped bankroll the Swift Boat effort is now looking, remarkably enough, even slimier.
The Associated Press has just named that CEO, Chesapeake Energy’s Aubrey McClendon, the highest-paid U.S. chief exec in 2008, just a few days after the natural gas company disclosed that McClendon last year took home $112.1 million.
In 2008, for the record, Chesapeake earnings fell 50 percent. Chesapeake shares plummeted nearly 60 percent. That plummet created a bit of a personal problem for McClendon, who had borrowed heavily to buy up Chesapeake stock. In October, he had to sell his shares — at a huge loss — when lenders demanded payback.
But McClendon would soon receive his own personal bailout — from the Chesapeake Board of Directors. In December, the board gave McClendon a brand-new employment contract that included a one-time $75 million bonus on top of $32.7 million in new stock awards.
The board also agreed to pay McClendon $12.1 million for his antique map collection.
At least one major Chesapeake shareholder, the Louisiana Police Employee Retirement System, is now threatening legal action against Chesapeake’s board, a body that includes former Oklahoma Republican Governor Frank Keating.
The company, in response, is calling McClendon’s new pay deal "the product of a carefully crafted exercise of business judgment that could not possibly support any inference of probable wrongdoing."
Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the online weekly on excess and inequality.