What Will Left Think of CEO's Firing?

It's sad to see Harry Stonecipher go. (here) The guy was doing a good job of bringing Boeing back from the defense scandals, and besides, he definitely had one of the greatest names in the CEO ranks.* [Disclosure: My firm does work for a Boeing division. I've never met Mr. Stonecipher or had any contact with his office.]

The Left may be perplexed by this. On the one hand, they probably will laugh at the Victorian sensibilities they suspect are behind it. On the other hand, they'll cynically greet it as window dressing to pretty up a corporate reputation that's been bruised lately for allegeldy doing the sorts of things they don't like corporations for. And on that troublesome third hand, they're probably deeply troubled and convicted inside (if they pause to think about it), as they see a dreaded defense contracting mega-corporation acting more ethically and responsibly than, say, the Regents of the University of Colorado.

But it's all quite simple, quite admirable, and should be quite duplicatable, whether left, right or center, capitalist or socialist. It all boils down to this:

Stonecipher was fired for having violated an internal code of conduct that he had imposed on all Boeing employees as he tried to improve the company's actions and image.

Boeing did the right thing, and is all the more admirable for it. A lingering question will be how best to treat the woman executive involved in the matter.

* Stonecipher is a great name. Two other great names I'd love to see brought together in a wedding headline: a lawyer I know in the Northwest named Coldiron and a mechanic here in the OC named Bonecutter: Coldiron-Bonecutter. If they ever got together, they'd just have to hyphenate and give birth to a generation of ortho surgeons and pro wrestlers.