Winner by a Knockout

AOL über critic and founder of AOL Watch, David Cassel was finally declared the victor in his battle to expose the lack of substance and management skill that Steve Case brought to the helm of America OnLine, as Mr. Case formally announced today that he would retire as chairman of AOL- Time-Warner in May.

Done in by the lack of a real business model to support the ridiculous market valuation that allowed AOL to purchase media giant Time-Warner 3 years ago, AOL’s share price has plummeted during the Dot Com Bust. With shareholders in open revolt and the board after his scalp, Steve Case finally admitted what David Cassel has spent the last decade trying to tell him. You’re a fraud, Mr. Case. Building a business around bad service, poor customer support, horrible software, censorship, cronyism, billions of AOL CD mailers, political payoffs, management by ego and alleged mob hits against rivals is only a temporarily way to jack up the stock price, but it is an insufficient way to create a viable company able to generate real wealth.

Long relegated to a special handing by AOL customer support representatives that would route his calls to marketing drones that wouldn't speak to him, Mr. Cassel spent years convincing the world that AOL sucked orange donkey dick. If only the world had listened. The the world didn't and as a result, AOL now owns Bugs Bunny.

Obviously celebrating this long overdue victory with a quick junket to Vegas for a week boozing, whoring, more boozing and a Charo concert, David Cassel was unavailable to comment before press time. However, always the good winner and a friend to those in need, David left a note on his web site offering the soon-to-be unemployed ex-CEO a job as a technical consultant at AOL Watch. Industry analysts consider this a shrewd move for AOL Watch, as it is likely that Mr. Case would be a goldmine of information about the secret and devious workings of AOL and would certainly know where a "lot of bodies are buried". Given the dreadful state of the economy and the surplus of has-been ex-CEOs of failed Dot Com companies, the likelihood of Mr. Case finding other employment is dim and it is expected that Mr. Case will soon enter negotiations with AOL Watch. Personally, this reporter thinks that making Mr. Case a technical consultant is an insult to the rest of the highly regarded AOLWatch staff and that he should start at the bottom of the hierarchy as a copy boy and work his way up on merit -- just like everyone else.

As for the PDJ, while I can’t speak for the entire PDJ Staff, I know most of us in the newsroom are thrilled that the David Cassel has finally triumphed over the forces of evil and we damn proud of his tenecity and absolute faith that allowed him to keep fighting all these years. We also hope that his next campaign against doesn’t take him 17 years to win. Anyway, a BIG PDJ BEUAJOLAIS to David!