Gil Amelio: from Turnaround King to Rightwing Swiftboater

Guess who scored a mention in Bob Novak's latest column? You already know because I put it in the headline. Yes, Gil Amelio, the turnaround king who rescued National Semiconductor (as chronicled in his Profit from Experience, available at Amazon, starting at $0.01) and Apple Computer (as chronicled in his On the Firing Line, also available at Amazon, starting at $0.01).

Why is Amelio featured in Novak's column? According to Novak, Gil is one of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs behind TheVanguard.org, a right-wing answer to moveon.org. TheVanguard is bulking up for '08, bringing on Jerome Corsi (co-author of Unfit for Command, the anti-Kerry screed that led to the coinage of the verb "to swiftboat.") and Richard Poe, a Freeper who is revving his engines to swiftboat Hillary, and already fired numerous salvos in print and online.

TheVanguard's chairman, Rod Martin, describes himself as a "prescient futurist," which, I guess, is the second best kind of futurist to be. The best, of course, is to be a funny and successful futurist like Matt Groening, creator of Futurama. To end this dismal report on a high note: there are are four direct-to-DVD Futurama movies in production and Comedy Central gets the rights to the series in 2008.

Mickeleh's Take: Does anybody else see some irony in Gil Amelio associating with the guy who wrote Unfit for Command? Yes, Apple lost a billion dollars in his last year there, but Gil actually did save Apple—by bringing back Steve Jobs.

More on Mickeleh's Soapbox.

Wisefool has more on this on Daily Kos. In a comment, Near Vanna recalls the fabled Gilometer.

(Tags: Gil Amelio, swiftboat, politics, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Steve Jobs, moveon.org)