Guilty Dog Look?
Location: BlogsBob O'Brien's Sanity Check Blog
Posted by: bobo 2/23/2006 10:34 PM
I just got an email as I was logging out of the little internet café I’m at, and it contained a truly remarkable piece from our good friend Herb Greenberg, of Marketwatch.com.
Apparently he received a subpoena from the SEC in the Gradient/SEC matter, requesting all his correspondence about OSTK, and 4 other stocks.
You can read his somewhat rambling piece here. (Everyone's a critic.)
Now, when I was a kid, I had a dog that had a distasteful quality - he was fond of munching on his own little "treasures."
Some dogs are just like that - nobody knows what causes it, or how to stop them from doing it.
Anyway, whenever he would go into the yard and do his deed (he really was an inveterate poop eater), he would come back in, and have a certain look on his face.
I always thought of it as his “guilty dog look.”
It was unmistakable. Really. I never understood his fascination with his digested meals, but I digress.
It's the look that's important.
When I read Herb’s indignant piece, as he wraps himself in the flag, and apple pie, and the Constitution, etc. filled with anger over the SEC (How dare they!!! This is about free speech!!!) subpoenaing his records pertaining to Gradient, and presumably Rocker, and perhaps other newsworthy hedge funds, I just thought – and I know this doesn’t mean anything….I thought……
Guilty dog.
Don’t know why. But there it is.
Maybe it's the whole lapdog thing. Maybe it's just something that popped into my head, unbidden. Don't know.
Just tossing it out there.
On a more personal note, here's some advice for another scribbler - although I am mostly into writing non-fiction lately, whereas Herb, well...you know:
Herb. Sweety. Babe. Deep breaths. The reason they are coming at you is because they are investigating stock manipulation. That is illegal. Save the whiney, acrimonious, “I talk to all kinds of sources” BS for someone who cares. This isn't Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia and you are not being persecuted. The SEC’s job is to investigate stock manipulation, the $hit is hitting the fan, and the previously untouchable network of smug, self-congratulatory parasites are getting subpoenas left and right, and this is just the start. So save it for the courtroom (assuming that there’s anything to all this).
Oh, and Herb? It isn’t about free speech. It's about conduct. As I've said all along.
This is just the first step as they slowly, methodically roll this up, is my hunch.
And you don't want to be like the "underpriveleged youths" in COPS, who invariably when they are pulled out of the car they just drove in a 100 mile chase through a school district, will proclaim, "I din't do it." If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide, no reason to mewl like a kitty. Celebrate the opportunity to vindicate your ethical superiority. Revel in it. The glass is half full...
But here’s a question for the Lickspittle, as he is affectionately called by some. I think it's a great question. I would hope someone emails him this question, and reports back to me with the answer:
Did you shut down your newsletter before, or after, you got the subpoena?
It’s just a question. Nothing more. Consonants and vowels with a bit of punctuation. Not even iambic pentameter. Just words.
I'm curious as to the answer...and it won’t necessarily mean anything - we all understand that. But I’m curious.
As to the brave-in-the-face-of-adversity façade, and trotting out 7 year old hits with Aremisoft, puhleese. Either you are a guilty dog, and have been dining on forbidden and distasteful fruit, or you aren’t. No need for 1200 words on why you should be untouchable.
So now everyone needs to ask themselves the same question - are you a guilty dog, or not?
I suppose time will tell. But do spare us all the “I’m a victim” stuff. It doesn’t play – lacks the ring of sincerity, so to speak…
And this time is different.
Any brave reporters feel like calling Rocker now to confirm the subpoena story?
No?
Why is that, do you think?
Copyright ©2006 Bob O'Brien
