Reports of Penn's Departure, Exaggerated, Premature

Sam Stein on Huffington Post reports on a conference call that Mark Penn hed with the managing directors of Burson Marsteller (where he is CEO). They can't have been any happier about the events of the past week than were the Clintons (where he is no longer Chief Strategist, but still plenty plugged in.

Burson Marsteller has even more reason to be upset than the Clinton campaign: Penn's handling of the matter lost them the Colombia contract.

Stein confirms that Penn's resignation is (per Penn, anyway) a non-resignation.

"I think you've heard that I made the decision to step down as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign. Penn Schoen and Berland is going to continue to poll for it and I'll continue to play a role advising Senator Clinton and former President Clinton as well as the rest of the leadership of the campaign."

The Clinton campaign, apparently, is eager to absorb even more of his disastrous advice.

(Tags: Clinton, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Mark Penn, Mark J Penn, Lobbyist, Burson-Marsteller, campaign)

Mickeleh's Take: Here are three things any chief executive (POTUS included) needs to master:

1. Finding smart advisors,
   
2. Empowering them to develop smart strategic options,
   
3. Having the perspective and judgment to select the best of those options for implementation.

Seems to me that Hillary, working with Penn, is 0 for 3.