For those of you who have never worked in a small industry, employing exclusively white collars, many of whom move around from company to company, let me share a few commonalities about them:
- Everybody in such an industry knows who are the good, bad and ugly professionals. The style of those in the last category is well known and identifiable. Hell, it is even fairly easy to predict exactly what they will do in the next job they acquire.
- Everybody also knows all of the major clients of the industry well. Again, the good, bad and ugly is easily attainable information.
- The "ugly" make some money for their employers in the short run, but in the long run cost them huge amounts of money.
The "uglies" cannot be stopped because, in the short run, everybody wants to "win" and the "uglies" have the best short-term track record at this and the employers are always suckers for this. The "uglies" in the field also attract the clients that can be labeled "ugly." The life cycle of both in any one place is relatively short.
One example. In 1998 the "uglies" in one small industry got in bed with Enron. The "uglies" at twelve different companies all got in on the action. They may have generated something like $20 million in revenues, a considerable sum in that industry. They were all well rewarded, and the "good" who pointed out that what the "uglies" were doing was very high risk, were as usual left out in the cold and the "uglies" reaped huge bonuses. When Enron blew so did these "deals." They cost the industry $750 million and the only reason it wasn't higher was because another industry had been involved and had misrepresented their role.
Trippi's words ring so true as coming from one of those in an industry when the "uglies" are creating havoc once again. His statement also rings true as the reaction of someone who was trying to do a decent job, but cannot compete effectively when the "uglies" are up to their tricks. Knowing the "what" of the havoc, informs those in the industry of the "who" because there are a limited number of styles and personalities. The actual documented proof of the shady dealing always lags what the pros are able to figure out very early on. Just as someone at there is probably someone at the CIA who could name the Plame culprit(s) but cannot document it, Trippi knows where it came from.
This is not to rationalize the weak closing campaign that Dean ran in Iowa -- mistakes were made. However, part of that could have been a response to seeing something odd happening with Dean's support and trying to compensate for it before there was any information as to what was causing this sudden and dramatic shift. It was like the Gore team not being prepared for the voter mess in FL before the election and always being one step behind the GOP in the post election day mess. Dirty tricks are difficult to identify in real time before the damage is done.
Are we going to act like good little GOP voters and reward the person who is likely behind this to represent us because at this point there is no proof? And then reward him further once we know because after all we must all be ABB?