UNC President Erskine Bowles was not around when former First Lady Mary Easley was first hired to run a speakers program at N.C. State University. And when she was given new duties and a dandy compensation package of $170,000 a year, he didn't like the way it was handled and ordered a review of the deal before the UNC Board of Governors, and he, blessed it last year. But when former N.C. State Board of Trustees Chairman McQueen Campbell, who had flown the governor on unreported trips and helped the Easleys get a good deal on coastal property, mentioned in a conversation a few weeks ago that he had suggested Mary Easley’s hiring to N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger, Bowles determined that Campbell had to go. Campbell resigned. Oblinger said he was embarrassed that he could not remember having that conversation with Campbell. He said he might have passed the idea of hiring the wife of the governor along to a colleague, but he simply couldn't remember.
But Oblinger's protestations didn't hold a lot of water among those who read a collection of Campbell's e-mails, including some from Oblinger, Monday when N.C. State released them. They show that Oblinger was aware that the governor was pushing his wife for a job at N.C. State, and that Campbell was pushing Easley's wife for a job at N.C. State, and Oblinger was aware that other campus officials knew about the deal. At one point, he wrote, “We're ready to move on this; next step is in the Mansion,” presumably a reference to the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh.
In other words, Oblinger's words didn't look or sound credible.
Bowles got the emails on Friday, and when he read the account, he said, "The e-mails made me feel sick." He had believed Oblinger when the chancellor had said he couldn't recall any discussions about a job for Easley. And Bowles said there were probably a lot of conversations he had had that he could not remember -- but after reading copies of the emails, it was much more difficult to believe.
Amen. And it's sad. I always thought Jim Oblinger was a really good chancellor, a good fit at N.C. State. But it's tough to believe he'd forget helping out the governor and the governor's wife. The wife of a dean, maybe, and surely the wife of an associate professor. But the governor? Come on. If it's true that he no longer remembered his own involvement, and the governor's, in helping the governor's wife get a job, his memory surely did him a disservice.
