Well,
Hillary did two weeks ago the same thing that Ken Lay did several years ago on
Larry King Live. Mr. Lay was CEO and Chairman of the Board of Enron and was
being interviewed by Larry King while he was under investigation and shortly
before his indictment for his role in Enron’s fraud. Mr. Lay told King that he
was “responsible for Enron,” and then a few minutes later stated that he was
not responsible for Fastow and Skilling and what they had been doing regarding
Enron’s trading and financial shenanigans. Larry King did what any of us would
have done and reminded Lay that he had just said he was “responsible” for
Enron, which should encompass the fiscal fraud. Lay had to extricate himself
from that confusion.
If Lay had said he was accountable for Enron but not responsible
for Skilling, et al he would have been more accurate (perhaps; he was, after
all, indicted).
But we
all confuse the two concepts. Hillary did exactly the same thing as Lay last
week when she took the blame for the Libyan Benghazi US Consulate attack by
saying she was “responsible” for security or the lack of it.
Responsibility
has a personal aspect to it; it is tied to what we personally do or not do.
Accountability
is a collective idea associated with authority. We are accountable for what we
have authority over. We cascade delegated responsibilities (duties) to
individuals down through an organization. We give responsibilities to others
but cannot “off-load” our accountability. Hillary’s responsibility would have been to articulate her expectations
concerning the security of consulates and assure that her instructions were carried
out. Others, perhaps well down in the organization, would have had the
responsibilities for putting the expectations into effect.
