Today:

President Bush on Wednesday complained about the size of corporate executives’ pay packages and urged boards to make sure they are tied more closely to companies’ performance…

“Government should not decide the compensation for America’s corporate executives. But the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders,” Bush said in a speech on the U.S. economy in New York…

“America’s corporate boardrooms must step up to their responsibilities. You need to pay attention to the executive packages that you approve. You need to show the world that America’s business are a model of transparency and good corporate governance,” he said.

From The Washington Post, 1999:

Spectrum 7, [Bush’s] exploration and development company, had reported a net loss of $1.6 million in 1985, due to the fast-deteriorating value of its holdings. As the price of oil fell from $25 to $9 a barrel, the firm was on its way to losing another $402,000 by mid-1986. Bush’s company owed more than $3 million in bank loans and other debts with no hope of paying them off in time. His investors had disappeared…

Bush’s name, however, was to help rescue him, just as it had attracted investors and helped revive his flagging fortunes throughout his years in the dusty plains city of Midland. A big Dallas-based firm, Harken Oil and Gas, was looking to buy up troubled oil companies. After finding Spectrum, Harken’s executives saw a bonus in their target’s CEO, despite his spotty track record.

By the end of September 1986, the deal was done. Harken assumed $3.1 million in debts and swapped $2.2 million of its stock for a company that was hemorrhaging money…

In addition to the seat on the board, [Bush] received more than $300,000 of Harken stock, options to buy more, and a consulting contract that paid him as much as $120,000 a year in the late ’80s, when he was working full time on his father’s presidential campaign.

From The Boston Globe, 2003:

Cheney spokeswoman Catherine Martin said the vice president will continue to receive about $150,000 a year from Halliburton in 2003, 2004, and 2005. If President bush wins a second term, that means Cheney will make at least $800,000 from the company while sitting in office…

In the summer of 2000, he told Larry King that quitting Halliburton for the vice presidency means “I take a bath.” He gave up a $1.3 million annual salary, but most people would have settled for mere shower droplets of his $33 million “retirement” package…

Conventional business wisdom is that someone “retiring” from your company ceases to add value to your bottom line, so a $33 million retirement package might seem a tad irresponsible or insider-y at first glance.

But to be fair, Halliburton’s doing great these days (Harken… not so much. You get what you pay for, I s’pose). Come to think of it, as far as being “a model of transparency…” I can’t quibble. I’d have to say that these businesses really, truly, definitely lived up to that.

It’d be hard to be any more transparent, really.

So… nevermind, I guess.  I should’ve stuck to getting schoolboy-type glee out of Reuters’ headline:  “Bush complains about size of CEO packages.”  Sometimes the cheap shots are the safest bets.