Back when Massachusetts’ Jack Welch was in charge of General Electric, anyone questioning the integrity of the company’s products or services could expect a fusillade of rebuttals. But when Welch, last Friday, made the incendiary claim on Twitter — without offering any evidence — that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ unemployment report was corrupted and that “these Chicago guys will do anything,” he seemed dumbfounded by the chorus of condemnations that followed.
At first, Welch suggested that he should have added question marks to his tweet. Then he went into full defense mode. He quit his Fortune column because the magazine covered the furor over his comments. He wrongly claimed that former Obama aide Austan Goolsbee had once raised similar complaints (Goolsbee had questioned the methodology of the unemployment report, not the integrity of the Bureau of Labor Statistics). Finally, he issued a Wall Street Journal op-ed comparing the Obama administration’s response to his toxic tweet to Soviet oppression.
Comments
Welch's assertions were slanderous and incendiary and such rhetoric is exactly why the country finds itself immersed in a political contentiousness that hasn't been seen since the 19th century. Shame on him.
I keep hoping that someone will sue him for slander.
People like Welch have created their own truth which has nothing to do with reality. They tell the big lie and then come to believe it. Welch believes that he really had something to do with GE and its success. Oh, Ozymandius. He believes his own publicity so why wouldn't he believe his own lies. God help us survive these self-inflating phonies. Having money does not make you right, just rich. It's time for someone to start telling truth to these powerful blowhards. Let's start by not giving them space to print this garbage. If he didn't have money, no one would give his tripe print room. Shame on the Wall Street Journal.
Under the 'cloak' of the Editorial Page, the "Globe" has the adacity to ask Jack Welch to revise his comments.
WHO is the "Globe" to make such a request? The Globe no longer has an Ombudsperson: Therfore the Globe subscribers do not have a resource to question the errors written on the Globe pages .
The Globe has every right to publicly comment on current events and publicly call on a man who is publicly making unsubstantiated accusations to apologize.
Thje old republican methodology of throwing tons of crap at the wall ans seeing if some of it sticks....
Hmm. Who knows more about this issue, the Globe's editorial writers or Jack Welch? I'm going with Jack. His piece in the journal was well done.
Jack Welch has an agenda, I question his integrity.