Column strikes back at 'tyrant' bosses

Today's Chronicle contains the following childish editorial, standing up for the little guy against the most heinous of all evils -- an employer:

Forget for a moment the merits of Bolton's resumé. Forget the seething Senate cauldron of party resentment. Let's be real: Most Americans don't give a hoot in Hades who our U.N. ambassador is. The reason many of us have followed the Bolton hearings with a sort of malicious satisfaction is because it's great to finally see a bully boss get his.

Forget the merits? Um, no thanks.

You know the type: Purple fit-pitching, overbearing browbeaters who hold your paycheck and future in their balled-up fists. And remind you of that fact loudly and often.

Oh, that's rich, considering the Chronicle used its "balled-up fists" to punch 243 people out of their jobs.

The proliferation of toxic boss syndrome is the reason we cheered when Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley, famous for pink-slipping her staff, did an extended stay at the Big Barred Hotel.

Silly me. I thought we cheered her conviction because she was a tax-dodging scumbag. I guess I should "forget the merits." Back to the column:

In another incident, a former government contractor testified that in 1994, Bolton threw a tape dispenser at her, made offensive comments about her weight, shouted threats, chased her down a Moscow hotel hallway, pounded on her door and "generally behave(ed) like a madman."

The writer, Bronwyn Lance Chester, omits a few items about this "former government contractor." To wit: her name is Melody Townsel, she ran an organization called Mothers Opposing Bush, and she changed her story after making those accusations. By the way, she's an admitted serial plagiarist. Yeah, she sounds credible.