The Unctuous Prick returns for one last hurrah.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

Detroit. Pardon me for thinking that we’d heard the last from Dan Akerson, that loathsome and now legendary carpetbagging tool who held the reins of GM in his hands for three-and-one-half excruciatingly painful years. Forgive me for thinking that the Unctuous Prick would take his leave and quietly retreat to the friendly confines of Washington, D.C., so he could regale his cronies how he survived his near-charitable stint in the hinterlands, trying to impart his wisdom to the poor unfortunates who toiled away in such a pathetically backward business that it’s a wonder it functioned at all before he got there. And please cut me some slack, because I thought that after such an embarrassing run at the top of what was once America’s industrial showpiece, where he was simply reviled and despised at every level of the corporation, that Akerson would keep his mouth shut, especially in the midst of the biggest crisis in the company’s history (other than the bankruptcy, of course).

No such luck, however.

Safely ensconced back hard by the Potomac, the former CEO gets his chance to obfuscate, deny and continue his game of self-entitled outrage at GM's so-called "culture" laced with his usual cloying air of superiority - his M.O. for three-and-a-half tedious and tiresome years while at the helm of GM - in an interview by David Shephardson in Monday's The Detroit News. Why Shephardson thought it would be a good thing to let Akerson pontificate once more is questionable but in the end he did us all a great service, because the depth and breadth of Akerson’s gift of self-delusion is there for all to see. I view the interview now as yet another important entry into The Historical Document of Bullshit marking Akerson’s reign of terror at General Motors.

Playing his Sergeant Schultzian "I know nothing" defense to perfection, Akerson blamed GM's culture and didn't own up to anything, except that he was a genius for promoting Mary Barra. In one particularly telling passage, Akerson railed at Internet chatter calling the suggestion that GM could soften criticism of its mishandling of the recall by promoting the first woman to lead an automaker ridiculous, adding, "fools can say anything....We have four women on the board. You’d have to be so cynical. You’d have to be a terrible person to even (think it).” Akerson called the suggestions “hurtful.”

Well, boo-fricking-hoo, Dan. Do you really want to know what's hurtful? Having to listen to you bob and weave and pretend you knew nothing. Having to sit there and listen to the relentless stream of unmitigated bullshit that comes out of your mouth, with you operating under the assumption that if you’re saying it, we must believe it to be true, because after all, you’re the great Dan Akerson, and we’re not.

Instead, it's an outrageous insult to everyone's intelligence who ever played this game (except to those you favored and promoted, of course).

That's right, Dan, you, the Unctuous Prick who openly loathed every last inch of this business to its core, and who regularly regaled your buddies on how just backward, unseemly and pathetic the auto business really was.

You, the guy who insulted the hard-working people of GM on a regular basis and in such condescending fashion that the common refrain I heard from seasoned, talented individuals throughout the corporation was that you were an abject embarrassment that they wished would just go away.  

You, who had so little respect for the history of this business or the people who came before you that you dismissed it all with a wave of the hand as being inconsequential and irrelevant, that you and your Telecommies had more smarts in your fingernails than anyone in this town or in this business would ever accumulate.

You, who professed your "love" for this city while not once living here, instead parachuting in to the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel when you had to be here while having your Chief PR Bagman, Selim Bingol (aka Unctuous Prick Jr.), try to paste together the story that you were a "car guy" who was just trying to do what was best for the company, because clearly the “little people” laboring there didn’t have a clue.

You, who held such little regard for the complexities of the business that you once bragged to an underling, "You could run product development, hell, I could run product - it's not that hard."

You, who followed that up by promoting Bob Ferguson - GM's Chief lobbyist, of all things - to run the Cadillac Division globally, even though he had not one shred of perspective or qualification to do so, saying in not so subtle fashion that he was a smart guy and he wasn't one of "them" - meaning one of the poor unfortunates who make up the backbone of this business who were toiling away at the company while you preened and pranced before them spewing insults in their direction.

How did all that work out for you, Dan?

The High-Octane Truth of the matter is that the company survived in spite of you. Those people whom you insulted and treated so condescendingly on a daily basis? Those True Believers are solely responsible for the product hits that GM has in the market today. 

It certainly wasn’t you, Dan, not by a long shot. Let’s not forget that you were plucked from boardroom obscurity by the most incompetent board in corporate America because you had the temerity to raise your hand in a board meeting when the subject of running the company came up, and you deluded yourself somehow into thinking that happenstance was a mandate of some sort that simply didn't exist.

That “Accidental Tourist of a CEO” moniker? You earned it and everyone knew it. You’re just lucky that GM’s board was so singularly incompetent, because if a boardroom coup could have been properly mounted, you would have been toast and you know it. You had only a handful of supporters and even fewer defenders. The rest? You misconstrued those smiles as meaning people actually liked you. No, Dan, they loathed you, and they did what they had to do to get by, which meant marking their desk calendars daily with big a red “X” praying that this would be the day that you would finally leave.

You were a walking-talking embarrassment from the get-go, simply a ridiculous spectacle fueled by a maniacal, runaway ego that knows no bounds, a Captain Queeg for a new age, couching everything in juvenile, bombastic, militaristic banter that had Navy people writing me embarrassed that you were dragging your naval background into the proceedings.

You are the quintessential definition of a carpetbagger. You had no affinity for the business or the people who worked in it whatsoever. You dismissed this industry as a backwater embarrassment and you were just biding your time until you could find something better, hoping there was a huge payday at the end. Instead, you made your escape back to Private Equity before the shit hit the fan.

Nicely done.

"Terrible person"? That moniker happens to fits you to a "T", Akerson.

Now, please do us all a favor and shut up.

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.