Hightower Lowdown

It's hilarious to hear the former high-stepping studs of corporate America now claiming that they were just humble mules, pulling the plow but totally ignorant of what was going on around them.

Ken Lay of Enron, Richard Scrushy of HealthSouth, and Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom are among the ex-CEOs who once accepted public accolades and millions of dollars in personal pay for being managerial "geniuses" who guided their corporations to the top... but have since tumbled all the way down into the public dock, accused of fraud, conspiracy, lying, and more. Bernie Ebbers, for example, engineered a series of corporate takeovers in the 1990s that made WorldCom a multibillion-dollar giant and rewarded himself with the extremely good life of CEO stardom. He was a darling of Wall Street, which called him a genius.

Alas, WorldCom soon became the largest corporate bankruptcy in history, and Bernie has been found guilty of orchestrating the $11 billion fraud that sank it. The company's former chief accountant said Bernie ordered him to falsify financial records.

But wait, Bernie said as he faced 25 years in prison, not only am I innocent, but I knew absolutely nothing about finances and stuff. Even though he was the top boss known for demanding "all the details" about WorldCom affairs, he professed that he was "shocked" to learn about that little $11 billion hickey in the books. "I put those people in place," he moaned, "I trusted them. I just had no earthly idea that anything like that would have occurred."