… with each other, or with themselves, it ain’t pretty. It can even become, as at North Carolina State University, a bloodbath.
So far the hacks and cronies who gave the wife of the scandal-ridden ex-governor a cushy job at a North Carolina campus and, soon after hiring her, upped her salary eighty-eight percent, have suffered two losses: The provost has had to go, and the chair of the university’s board of trustees is on the verge of going.
The president of the University of North Carolina system has asked McQueen Campbell, chairman of the N.C. State University board, to resign immediately after learning this week that Campbell played a role in hiring former first lady Mary Easley.Erskine Bowles told The News & Observer on Thursday that Campbell phoned him earlier this week and “went through a whole mea culpa,” then recounted telling Chancellor James Oblinger that Easley was looking to change jobs before N.C. State hired her in 2005.
“He said, ‘I did tell Jim Oblinger in passing that Mary Easley was going to change jobs and he may not even remember that.'” Bowles said. “And I said, ‘What?’ That was about the end of the conversation. I was surprised.”
Campbell was prominently featured in a two-part series last weekend in The N&O, which recounted his friendship and influence with Mike and Mary Easley. Campbell flew the governor often in his planes, sometimes for free, and bragged of his influence in getting key development permits. The governor twice appointed him to the N.C. State Board of Trustees, where he rose to chairman.
Campbell had insisted that he played no role in Mary Easley’s job at N.C. State. He denied having even a single conversation with university officials or Mary Easley before she got a three-year contract at $80,000 a year in 2005, or when she received a five-year, $850,000 contract that touched off controversy.
That story changed with his call to Bowles. Bowles then phoned Oblinger, who said in an interview Thursday that he did not recall being told by Campbell that Mary Easley would be available. Oblinger said he does not deny it might have happened…
The article goes on to cite the idiot head of trustees bragging about how his political connections allow him to break rules and skirt laws. Plus he’s on record lying to a reporter about his involvement in the Easley case. Just the sort of person you want at the helm of a university.
So far the bloodbath has bypassed the governor’s wife, understandably eager to retain her amazingly lucrative position. But the president of the North Carolina system now says, rather darkly, that she “will be reviewed in the appropriate manner especially as we look at where we’re going to place our budget going forward.”
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Update: McQueen Campbell (great name) obliges.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:13AM
Name that party!
Irksome Bowels, one of Bill Clinton’s dearest and scuzziest friends, will get right on this.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:21AM
Thank you for that, tp. I should have, er, released that name.