Neff Zone Column

November 6, 2006

INTERESTING CHOICE OF WORDS

Sometimes you read a phrase or a sentence and you say to yourself, "That was an interesting choice of words." Before you know it your mind is in second gear and it’s off to the races with your thought processes.

That very thing has happened to me recently. For example, on a couple of campaign ads for Richard DeVos, one featuring his daughter and the other one starring former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, the statement is made: "He’s turned around companies." The clear intent is to show that if DeVos can turn around companies he certainly can turn around Michigan.

The word "companies" is what made me wonder. "Companies" is a plural word, so naturally I wondered what companies DeVos had rescued from peril. I went to the DeVos Web site and downloaded the media materials looking for a list of the companies that had benefited from the DeVos expertise.

What I found was that DeVos has only worked for three companies. (If he’s worked for more than that he apparently considered them too insignificant to include on his own official resume.) One is The Windquest Group, of which he is the founder. Now, unless one assumes that he founded the company, ran it into the ground, and then turned it around (essentially saving the company from himself), you pretty much have to take Windquest off the "companies" list.

A second company for which DeVos worked was the Orlando Magic NBA basketball team. As president and CEO from 1991-1993 the DeVos led Magic compiled a 93-153 record. They were so bad that in 1992 they were awarded the league’s first draft choice and they chose Shaquille O’Neal (a draft pick so obvious only the Lion’s Matt Millen could have messed it up). The next year, O’Neal’s first, the Magic again missed the playoffs and nabbed another number one pick via a league lottery. So, unless one argues that the Magic’s turn around depended on being totally inept in the first place you have to take them off the "companies" list.

That leaves just one company (singular word) on the "list" of DeVos turn around projects – Amway (Alticor). According to his own business history, DeVos has served in mid-management, as Vice President, and as President of Amway. As you know, it’s a DeVos family company. So, the question here is when did Amway, under DeVos family leadership, became so horribly downtrodden that Richard had to swoop in and turn it around, thus saving the entire DeVos clan from ignominious disaster? If that scenario never occurred, then one would have to assume DeVos never had to turn Amway around.

"Companies" is an interesting plural word in this light, isn’t it?

Still in the political arena, by now everyone has heard about Senator John Kerry’s recent bout of foot-in-mouth disease. Whether you think his comments were a botched joke about the President or not, the part that intrigued me was "…education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well." I got to wondering about the "make an effort to be smart" part and how it related to Kerry’s own grade point average.

According to reports in the Boston Globe and on NewsMax.com: "Under Yale's grading system at the time Bush and Kerry attended, Kerry received five Ds, including a D in political science. Bush, during his time at Yale, got one D, in astronomy. Overall, Kerry finished Yale with a cumulative score of 76. Bush finished with a score of 77.

You see, this is the problem with the Democratic party; they have spokespersons who seem intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Not much of "an effort to be smart," is it?

As long as we’re in the political arena we may as well finish there with the recent passage of a law to erect a 700-mile fence along the border between Mexico and the United States. This is one of those feel-good ideas that looks pretty good in theory. Congress hailed the President’s signing of the bill as an accomplishment on immigration reform and the President called it "an important step to secure our nation’s borders." I want you watch that "step" because I predict it will become a "dance" as soon as Congress and the President have to face the music. Here’s why.

How high will the fence be? The Governor of Arizona is on record as saying, "You show me a 50-foot fence and I’ll show you a 52-foot ladder."

If you own a ranch on the Rio Grande River and your livestock goes down to the river to drink, where are they going to go when a fence separates them from the river? The predominantly Republican ranchers of Texas are already asking that question.

How much will the fence cost? The estimate is $6-7 billion but only $1.2 billion is currently allocated. It will have to cross private lands with deeds dating back to Spanish land grants. Can you spell l-a-w-s-u-i-t?

Who is going to build the thing? Will this be another no-bid windfall for some Texas company that begins with an "H" and has ties to the Vice President? Will small, private contractors be in the mix? How will the government respond when those contractors hire illegal immigrants to build the fence that is supposed to keep the illegals out of the U.S. in the first place?

See what I mean. "Step" can be an interesting word. Sometimes unless you "watch your step" what you "step" in might be something you didn’t expect.

Jim Neff is a local columnist. Comments to neffzone@gmail.com. Read Neff Zone columns online at www.neffzone.com/cadillacnews.