H-P Clears the Air, but Not the Cloud

"I extend my sincere apologies to those journalists who were investigated and everyone who was impacted." (Mr. Hurd, if you really want journalists to take your words to heart, never ever use "impact" as a verb.)

And that was the very moment I started to fear for Hewlett-Packard. I had initially cheered on Hurd's ability to turn the company around in the wake of the fiasco known as Carly Fiorina.

So I never thought I'd actually say this, but the events of the past few weeks -- culminating in Hurd's impersonation of Sgt. Sebastian -- have made me a little nostalgic for the Fiorina era. At least when she messed up, it was visible. It gave investors a chance to bail out at the warning signs.

But under the Dunn era, and quite possibly under the Hurd era, investors may not have the benefit of Fiorina's red flags. If the leak-probe scandal is any indicator, illicit and possibly illegal acts are to be kept under wraps.

That suspicion was in no way ameliorated by Hurd's press conference Friday -- a staged event where he boldly admitted he consented to sending a journalist false information, then turned around and asked a room full of journalists to trust him.

On top of that was the way phrases like "I believe," "I understand" or "we believe" were tossed around at the press conference like candy on Halloween. Public Relations 101 teaches that if you want to make someone trust what you're saying while covering your behind, then use a qualifying phrase like "I believe that..." If you're caught, you just say you were saying what you believed.

So, here's a question for H-P's new chair: What else is the board hiding?