hail (and brimstone) to the chief

From "The Exception to the Rulers" by Amy Goodman and David Goodman...

"When we were putting our board together, somebody came to me and said 'Look, there is a guy who would like to be on the board. He's kind of down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. Needs some board positions. Could you put him on the board? Pay him a salary and he'll be a good board member and be a loyal vote for the management and so forth.'"

"We put him on the board and he spent three years. Came to all the meetings. Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones... I kind of said to him after about three years, 'You know, I'm not sure this is really for you. Maybe you should do something else because I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company.' He said 'Well I think I'm getting out of this business anyway and I don't really like it all that much. So I'm probably going to resign from the board' and I said 'Thanks.' Didn't think I'd ever see him again.

"His name is George W. Bush. He became president of the United States. So, you know, if you said to me, 'Name twenty-five million people who would maybe be president of the United States' he wouldn't have been in that category. So you never know"

David M. Rubenstein
Carlyle founder and managing director
April 23, 2001