McCain Opposes Golden Parachutes (Unless They’re For His Friends)

This morning in Scranton, Sen. John McCain said:

“We can’t have taxpayers footing the bill for bloated golden parachutes like we see in the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy, where the top executives are asking for $2.5 billion in bonuses after they ran the company into the ground.”

But in an interview that aired on NBC’s “Today” show just hours earlier, Meredith Viera asked McCain if his own economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, is an example of the problem:

VIERA: You promised to crack down on CEOs who walked away with huge severance packages. And yet the person that up until recently was your public face on your economic policies was Carly Fiorina. She’s the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She was fired in 2005, but she left with a $45 million golden parachute while 20,000 of her employees were laid off. She is an example of exactly the kind of person you say is at the root of the problem. 

McCAIN: I don’t think so.

VIERA: How can you say that?

McCAIN: Because I think she did a good job as CEO in many respects.

h/t FireDogLake

By: Joel