Patrick M. Byrne, Will You Please Go Away Now!
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Red State: Show of hands, everyone who thinks Sarah Palin was the worst thing to happen to the Republican Party in a long time. Okay, now put them down, because I have someone worse, far worse, in almost every way. His name is Patrick M. Byrne, and if the Daily Kos could have its way, he, not Palin, would be the new face of conservative political activism in America. Byrne is the founder and CEO of Internet retailer Overstock.com. He is, to put it bluntly, not a very good businessman. In a way he’s almost the worst kind, one unable to turn a profit with any regularity, in spite of years of confident predictions to the contrary, yet never failing spectacularly enough that his enterprise fails outright and causes him to go find another line of work. Blogger Jeff Matthews has written an excellent series of posts (the best and most detailed ones are from 2005) running down many of the various failings and blunders of Byrne’s tenure as CEO, and, until recently, Chairman as well. Another worthy read is that of Sam Antar, of Crazy Eddie’s infamy, who knows a thing or two about accounting fraud, having committed it himself, and makes a strong case that much the same is going on at “The O”. Byrne has, how shall I put this, some very severe personality flaws.
Thin-skinned, vindictive, ego-driven — he kind of reminds me of the current occupant of the Oval Office in a way, except that he lacks the latter’s ability to maintain his composure in public. Still, he’s close enough that I think he’d fit right into the party of Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank — but alas, he is a full-blooded conservative from that reddest of the red states, Utah. The big problem with Byrne (and I don’t count this against his being a conservative because this is something that transcends political viewpoints) is that he is a big supporter of the First Amendment, except when it’s his own ox being gored by that pesky freedom of speech thing. Unable to satisfactorily answer the criticisms leveled against his business practices, he sadly falls back on the time-dishonored practice of attacking the messenger, defaming or otherwise attempting to ruin those who speak out against him publicly, and for those who choose to air their criticisms anonymously, he has been known to go to some rather drastic lengths to uncover their identities and then go after them.
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