Jack Welch Quits Doing Punditry . . .

. . . about one tweet too late. Sorry, not a Stupid Manager Trick, just a disappointing end to an admirable executive's second career as a public intellectual.

From HuffPo comes late word that former GE CEO Jack Welch has quit his commenting gigs with Fortune and Reuters, following a breathtakingly ill-advised tweet last Friday essentially accusing the Obama Administration of fudging the rosy September jobs report.

It's sad that the famously direct-speaking Welch should have allowed himself to be compromised by corporate groupthink that holds Obama responsible for all things bad about the economy. Props to him for being honest enough to own the tweet once it turned into a storm, rather than throwing one of his flunkeys under the bus. Balls does not equal smarts - and Welch, who has never lacked either balls or smarts, displayed only the balls (and ballsiness) last Friday. The unfortunate result is that Welch has lost access to the public square, beyond what his name alone can continue to command. Fortune, and the whole CNN platform, are closed to him; likewise Reuters. If the goal of entrepreneurship is to play with other people's money, the goal of punditry should be to play with other people's (social) communication tools. Welch failed to remember that fundamental principle, and to self-edit accordingly.

The Skeptical Entrepreneur is amused, but no less dismayed, by another old-school, starched-white-shirt corporate executive trying to draw a facile and fatuous connection between the Obama Administration and Socialism. If only the President of the United States - any POTUS, regardless of party affiliation! - could conjure the economy to do his bidding just by saying, "Fiat!"

So long, Jack. Happy retirement. At any rate, you can serve as a useful object lesson. Memento mori.