In the face of Representative Henry Waxman’s rich-people-hating heart and perhaps fearing his secret chamber of whips and snares, Lehman CEO Richard Fuld got right down to the business of apologizing this morning in front of the House Oversight Committee: “With the benefit of hindsight, I can now say that I and many others were wrong,” he said, according to the Journal. He went on. “Mr. Fuld said that some media coverage of Lehman Brothers was ‘sensationalized,’ and blamed leaks to press about a possible deal with the Korea Development Bank as well as rumors about the company’s liquidity for forcing it to announce its earnings before it had a chance to complete any plans for finalizing a deal that would lessen the impact of company’s downward spiral on its investors. ‘I feel horrible about what happened,’ Mr. Fuld said.” Ha! Did you see that? How he sandwiched the blame on other people into two personal apologies? That’s like the CEO version of the southern put-down. [WSJ]
UPDATE: Whoah:
2:33 p.m. “I wake up every single night wondering what I could have done differently,” Mr. Fuld said, adding, “This is a pain that will stay with me the rest of my life.”
2:45 p.m. The hearing comes to a close: Mr. Waxman concluded the session with a bit of a lecture to Mr. Fuld. “I accept the fact that you’re still haunted at night” about the collapse of Lehman,” Mr. Waxman said. But, he added… “You don’t seem to acknowledge that you did anything wrong.” [DealBook/NYT]
