ABC News embarrasses itself

Read this, if you must. It's by Scott Mayerowitz and it's painfully, painfully stupid.

Here's a flavor:

America's CEOs are coming under fire these days not just for their hefty salaries but also for their use of private jets, limos with drivers and free trips to posh resorts. But they aren't alone in living this lavish lifestyle -- the president of United States gets all these perks and more.

And unlike some of his Cabinet appointments, he doesn't have to pay taxes on these benefits. It might be a bit of a stretch to compare today's corporate titans with the commander in chief, but some Wall Street bloggers clearly upset with President Obama's attempts to rein in executive pay are doing just that.

“Some accountability needs to be put in place. We won't have them kicking sand in the face of taxpayers any longer,” said one private equity worker on Dealbreaker.com, a Wall Street gossip site and blog.

Obama has proposed capping annual compensation at $500,000 for executive at financial firms that receive huge government bailouts. Therefore, ABC News, responding to “Wall Street bloggers,” writes up a 'news' story noting that gee, the president gets paid a lot of money, too.

If your head isn't starting to hurt, then by all means click on the article and read the whole thing and read how Mayerowitz completely ignores the fact that some of the CEO's in question were making tens of millions of dollars, while the POTUS makes just $400,000. But yeah, their pay is still analogous.

I realize layoffs in the news biz are rampant, but did ABC News fire all of its editors? Not only is the premise and execution of this article a complete embarrassment (can somebody please explain the article's Steve Ford reference), but it doesn't even make sense. Quite literally. Re-read these two graphs:

It might be a bit of a stretch to compare today's corporate titans with the commander in chief, but some Wall Street bloggers clearly upset with President Obama's attempts to rein in executive pay are doing just that.

“Some accountability needs to be put in place. We won't have them kicking sand in the face of taxpayers any longer,” said one private equity worker on Dealbreaker.com, a Wall Street gossip site and blog.

Do you notice how the provided quote--the quote that's supposed to set up the entire premise of the article--makes no sense. How does that quote convey the idea that “some Wall Street bloggers” are comparing POTUS pay to CEO pay? The way I read the mangled quote, the exact opposite was being inferred. (i.e. The CEO's need to be held accountable.) Either way, it literally makes no sense.

Elsewhere Mayerowitz claims “Corporate America quickly pointed out that while the president also only makes $400,000 a year, he gets all sorts of extra perks and doesn't have to pay taxes on them.” But the reporter never quotes anybody from corporate America making that claim.

Combine that with the mysterious, incoherent “blogger” quote provided, and it's obvious there's no proof anybody in corporate America or on Wall Street is comparing POTUS pay to CEO pay. Why? Because CEO pocket tens of millions of dollars annual, and the POTUS $400,000.

As we said, just painfully stupid.