Yesterday, the NYT fired it's executive editor, a white woman and a member of the professional victim class. And in her place will be her former second in command, a black man.

Immediately after her firing, within minutes, her story was leaked - that she'd asked for equal pay and was fired - she played the victim card out of the gate, guns a blazing. But the other story line was that she was incompetent and the paper was in trouble as a result of her tenure.

The hamsters are spinning in all their glory.

But a blog I read frequently had a good example of power talk - the second in command was quoted saying the following over a year ago:

“I think there’s a really easy caricature that some people have bought into, of the bitchy woman character and the guy who is sort of calmer,” [Baquet] said. “That, I think, is a little bit of an unfair caricature.”

He attributed the "bad stuff" about her bitchy character to "some people", while at the same time bringing it up, then half heartedly disagreeing (he could have vehemently disagreed, the damage was done by bringing it up in the first place). His hands were clean, the damage was done.

I think it's an excellent maneuver in the sociopathic world of corporate war. He probably waged this kind of campaign for months to finally topple her, one cut at a time.

If you want to take someone down a peg in a corporate environment, you can use this double talk. "Some people think she's crazy, that she over reacts, or she can't do her job, but you know, she's going through a hard time, and we all need someone to lean on from time to time."

Describing it sounds very indirect, and almost weak, but I've seen powertalk used by the most ruthless alpha men.

Any other tactics for defeating the hamster without becoming food for it?