Sadly, our own Andrew Wiederhorn emerges as the winner of Nicholas Kristof’s first-ever Michael Eisner Award for Corporate Misgovernance.

Wiederhorn - the winner of a special $9.98 shower curtain in memory of Dennis Koslowski’s 6K curtain (billed to Tyco, of course) - beat out notable candidates John Rigas (former Adelphia C.E.O.) and Morgan Stanley’s Phillip Purcell.

More broadly, Mr. Davis said, the Fog Cutter board is acting in the interest of shareholders by keeping Mr. Wiederhorn happy so that he will return to the company after his release in October. “He’s the genius behind the company,” Mr. Davis said.

And that, I think, is the problem: Corporate America has nurtured a cult of chief executives, hailing them as geniuses and then excusing their misconduct and megalomania. Corporate documents released this spring show that the Fog Cutter board awarded Mr. Wiederhorn $6.3 million in total compensation for 2004 and for the nine months of prison time in 2005. I can’t think of a board that has ever so disgraced the principles of corporate governance by overpaying a C.E.O. even as he sits in prison.

Grrrreat. We’re Number One - at rewarding greed and avarice.

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