I don't think anybody can have any qualms, as a shareholder, with Dick Parsons.

"Dick Parsons is not a bad man," Mr. Icahn said.

"I don't think you can criticize Dick Parsons at all for the operations of this company, most of which is operating at peak profitability."

And if Dick Parsons has a magic formula to get that stock up, you know, hurray.

But if there are some people whose lives seem to flow out of their pedigrees, there are also people like Dick Parsons.

"Dick Parsons kept all his promises to me," he said in his raspy Brooklyn accent.

Dick Parsons was his deputy.

"Ask yourself this question: If your family inherited this corporation, would you keep Dick Parsons after all the blunders he's made?"

As he told me last year, "If Dick Parsons has a magic formula to get that stock up, you know, hurray."

Dick Parsons is a neat guy, a visionary.