"Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, heavily criticized for his agency's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, is starting a disaster preparedness consulting firm to help clients avoid the sort of errors that cost him his job." (link: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1125-01.htm)

This mind-bending news got me to thinking: If it is possible to convert ill-managed catastrophes into personal financial gain, what kind of consultancy work could other power-brokers get into once their careers started to wind down?

The Consultant: George W. Bush
The Company Name: The Bring It On Group
The Pitch: President George W. Bush made a career out of failing to understand the basic tenets of geo-political strategy. Who can forget the incredible moment when the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military actually encouraged the enemy to attack his own troops with the infamous line, "Bring it on!"? This timeless piece of macho, bone-headed leadership paved the way for the formation of The Bring It On Group: a consultancy firm dedicated to eliminating testosterone-soaked managerial decisions that could, in retrospect, seem like organizational suicide.

The Consultant: Rupert Murdoch
The Company Name: Socialist Advisory Cooperative
The Pitch: With a stable of media companies that includes Fox News, The Sun (UK), and The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch is ideally placed to help organizations eliminate harmful corporate practices such as war-mongering, xenophobia, sexism and narrow-minded bigotry. Groups hoping to instill egalitarian, socialist values into their organization should consider the Socialist Advisory Cooperative. Rupert Murdoch, via his News Corporation tentacles, made billions in profits from playing (simultaneously) the soft-porn, populist, moralistic, xenophobic and nationalist cards. His hypocrisy and double-standards knew no bounds! Now that your organization wishes to go in the opposite direction, Mr. Murdoch can lead the way.

The Consultant: John Kerry
The Company Name: The Relatively-Moderate-Yet-Patriotic Consulting Company of Jonathan Forbes Kerry
The Pitch: Are your mangers indecisive? Wishy-Washy? Pampered? The Relatively-Moderate-Yet-Patriotic Consulting Company of Jonathan Forbes Kerry is here to help. We are not exactly sure how, but we are probably better than the Bring It On Group...not that loving America or supporting Guantanamo are wrong. We're just better. But not in a snobby East Coast way. We like beer like the rest of you. We were in Vietnam. We wanted to bomb Iraq like everyone else. Don't get us wrong.

The Consultant: Bill Bennett
The Company Name: Blackjack Consultancy
The Pitch: When Bill Bennett drops a few hundred thousand at the tables in Las Vegas, it isn't the house that wins...your company does! After making a career out of pontificating about everything from the state of education in the United States, to drugs, to the ethical decline of our nation, Bennett can offer your business priceless insights into the perils of taking the moral high-ground once too often. Employees love guidance, but when bosses cross the line and become pompous hypocrites, company morale can sag along with management credibility. Let Blackjack Consultancy help you avoid the pitfalls of self-righteousness!

The Consultant: John Bolton
The Company Name: One Globe Solutions
The Pitch: In an increasingly globalized world, companies require expert advice on how to build meaningful, lasting relationships across religious, geographic and cultural boundaries. Clients will benefit from John Bolton's vast experience of consensus-destruction and strong-arm bullying. Who better to help your organization adopt an internationalist outlook than the man who put the "UN" in "Unilateral"?

The Consultant: Samuel Robson "Rob" Walton (Chairman of the Board of Directors, Wal-Mart)
The Company Name: Living Wage Consultancy
The Pitch: Workers in large corporations are often subjected to the union-busting tactics of their owners. Living Wage Consultancy is here to help workers break free of those shackles! Rob Walton can teach unions the "tricks of the trade" used by mega-corporations to destroy worker solidarity and maximize profits, such as: reducing healthcare costs by not hiring anyone who looks like they might get sick in the next 15 years; forcing workers to buy their own insurance at rip-off rates; and -- the old classic -- threatening to fire anyone and everyone who even looks at a union leaflet.

The Consultant: Pat Robertson
The Company Name: WWJD Consultants
The Pitch: WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) Consultants can help businesses integrate Christian pacifist ethics into their corporate operations. As any literate third-grader could tell you, Jesus would probably have been opposed to the state-sanctioned murder of an elected head of a sovereign nation. Still, this didn't stop WWJD founder Pat Robertson from endorsing such an action against Hugo Chavez! With Pat at the helm, WWJD Consultants can teach organizations, corporations, governments and individuals the Christian values of equal wealth redistribution, turning the other cheek and the evils of violence. The Reverend Robertson misunderstood the Bible...let him show you how to avoid his sins!

The Consultants: Wolf Blitzer, Judy Miller & Dan Rather
The Company Name: Soft Ball Consulting
The Pitch: Leaders of news organizations who wish to train their journalists in the arts of tough cross-examination and investigative reporting need look no further. Soft Ball Consulting sees the creation of the journalistic "Dream Team" of Blitzer, Miller and Rather. This trio has an unparalleled history of pandering to the powerful, lobbing cream-puff questions to the corrupt power elite, accepting the party line as gospel, and ignoring issues central to the workings of American democracy in favor of the inane and the sexy. They have now learned from their myriad mistakes, and so can you.

The Consultant: Tony Blair
The Company Name: The Poodle Group
The Pitch: The Poodle Group, led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations who find themselves under the thumb of a more powerful co-worker, organization, or "ally". Nothing creates tension more than an imbalanced power relationship: a situation which can lead to undignified fawning and gutless sycophancy. Let the Poodle Group teach you how to assert your individuality and opinions, while maintaining your dignity. (!!!Ask about our 90% discount for U.S. customers!!!)

The Consultant: Dick Cheney
The Company Name: Go Fuck Yourself Consulting
The Pitch: If not Dick Cheney to tell you that government contracts are unfairly awarded to companies with the closest ties to the administration in power, then who? If your business wishes to bid for a government contract, but you are worried that it will simply be palmed off to a company with party hacks on the payroll, Dick Cheney and his partners have three words for you: "Go Fuck Yourself!"

Christian Christensen is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, Turkey. He can be reached at bahcesehircc@yahoo.com