If they want to blame Eisner for the bad, they have to give him credit for the good also.
Interesting choice of words. I've read DB's answer this, but I'll pose it to you. Do you hold Eisner responsible for the company's troubles? Either on the level of specific failures, like DCA, Go.com, internal animation, etc, or at the macro level, like the stock price the last 10 years or the unprecedented vote of no confidence at the '04 meeting?
That aside, I still don't get the fascination with the tally board of "goods" and "bads".
Name any leader in history and you can pick apart his/her lists of goods and bads, and you can argue forever about how much of those things were directly attributable to them.
But even under the worst or most evil leaders, some good deeds or accomplishments are achieved. In some cases, those "good" things might even be achieved because of some postive trait or action taken by that leader.
But so what? They still did a bad job. Do you feel the need to point out those good things everytime somebody says the person failed or was at least not the best person for the job?
Now, with Eisner specifically, I think he was the wrong guy for the job from day one. Yes, the company performed very well for the first 10 years of his tenure, but certainly its not as simple as saying Eisner was in charge so he was the only guy who could have got it done.
Those who orchestrated the coup that put Eisner in power wanted Wells as the #1 guy, Eisner as the #2. Eisner refused, and then Wells agreed to reverse the roles. However, Wells did not report to Eisner, but also reported to the Board. Its difficult to escape the fact that Eisner simply did not have complete control of the company, unlike in later years.
As YoHo points out, the surrounding leadership in the company was widely regarded as being much stronger at that time than in later years.
Is it coincidence that when Eisner assumed complete control of the company (and essentially the Board), the company's performance faltered?
Most say that he did a good job prior to that point, but just didn't do a good job after. I find it too great a coincidence that as he consolidated his power, his performance grew more and more questionable. The facts point not to someone who lost some of their ability to effectively lead the company, but more to someone whose effectiveness diminished as the team that mitigated his negatives disappeared.
One last point... Eisner did not save the company from a break-up. The break-up was thwarted by Roy and the Bass Brothers. When Eisner (and Wells) took control, the break-up was off the table.
ADDED IN EDIT:
One more last point... when evaluating a person like Eisner, or any other CEO for that matter, you can't just assume that anything positive (or negative) would or wouldn't have happened under another leader. As just one example, yes, Eisner ok'd hotels. But let's face it, anybody brought into the position had to start making use of the underutilized assets. ANYBODY given that job was going to build something. The question is, could somebody else have reasonably done a better job?
