Hillary's Accountability

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.