That's why he's been allowed to stay on and decline like an aging American college football coach — the board, like the fans, would hope that he'd see the writing on the wall and take the hint, rather than forcing upper management to step in and go through
the ugly public process of taking away Grandpa's car keys.
The confirmation
process can leave a nominee in limbo for months or even years, and can have an
ugly side, he says: It exposes the private lives of «distinguished people» to
public scrutiny in an unseemly
process that he calls «innocent until nominated.»