To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People Oct. 20, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/10/20/np1020 Thou shalt not pass the buck New management book takes a look at Moses, MBA. Plus: Phoebe stalked, Liddy rocked and pseudo-sheik's party for Cher? A total crock. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter So he hasn't parted the Red Sea, been handed the Ten Commandments by the man upstairs or had Charlton Heston play him on the big screen. AOL prez Bob Pittman is still the most Moses-like mogul around. Or so says David Baron, a Beverly Hills rabbi whose new book, "Moses on Management: 50 Leadership Lessons From the Greatest Manager of All Time," sets out to do for bosses what Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's "Kosher Sex" did for lovers. "I think Moses was flawed," Rabbi Baron tells me. "He was human. He made mistakes, and I think the great thing is he allowed people to make mistakes." Just like Pittman! Baron maintains the AOL chief handled the company's congestion problems in a "very Moses-like" manner. "He said, 'Look, I take full responsibility for this mistake. It won't happen again under my watch to the best of my ability, and I'll reimburse anyone for any losses they encountered,'" says the rabbi. "He dealt with it and moved forward, and I think Moses did that too in the way he dealt with the Golden Calf. You know, let's correct this problem and move forward." Fine, but ultimately, it all comes down to prophet and loss. Right, Rabbi? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Didn't rock Liddy's locks "I'll tell you something great about California: within five minutes of the quake, work crews were out there checking for cracks and structural damage in Elizabeth Dole's hair. Nothing seemed to have moved." -- Jay Leno on the earthquake that shook Southern California over the weekend, on "The Tonight Show." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Phoebs and the fuzz It wasn't exactly the same as having someone break into your house to nap in your bed and try on your jeans (poor Brad Pitt) or having to be rushed -- babe in arms -- out of Heathrow Airport by a phalanx of security officers after receiving a dark threat (poor Madonna), but it was a little weird. "I generally don't get harassed like the other people on my show," Lisa Kudrow tells the November Jane magazine. "But, you know, the couple of times that I was being followed, I'd just drive to the police station." Once, on her way to get her hair done, she noticed someone shadowing her. "They were just following me, and not in a clever way," she says. "They followed me into the parking structure at the police station. Took a ticket and everything. I'm, like, in the police station." Sounds like Phoebe's fans take after the object of their affection. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Has Michael's plastic surgeon been cheating on him? "I was standing not three feet away from him and I saw his face extremely clearly. If that was an impersonator then it was a very, very good one." -- Darren Regan, manager of a small theater in Barnstaple, England, where hundreds of people insist they saw Michael Jackson make a surprise appearance on Sunday night, despite denials by the pop king's people. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Gipper's decline Thought you'd never feel sorry for President Reagan? Me, too. But his daughter Patti's heartbreaking description of her dad's decline in the German magazine Focus has left even me a little teary-eyed. "My father is dying a cruel and lingering death," she writes. "In recent months all he has been able to concentrate on have been comic books and fairy stories ... He liked me to sit with him and read him stories from a children's book. One in particular he liked was a picture book about animals with a story about a wolf that wanted his mother to come and feed him. I read to him but when we had finished he asked me again to go back to the first page -- he couldn't remember anything -- that is what Alzheimer's does to you." It's time now for sympathy, I think. Later, you can resume railing about his messed-up politics. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits If I told you I was an Arab prince, asked you to lend me your house so I could throw a big birthday bash for Cher and hinted that I might want to buy it to use in a TV series starring Cher and Kevin Costner, would you go for it? Some poor shmo with a Monte Carlo chateau did. And now that the party's over and "Saudi prince" Sulaiman Al Kehaimi has proven to be a royal fake, the hapless homeowner has filed suit. Hope he was at least invited to the party. Wait till Rudy Giuliani hears about this one. For the upcoming "Art of Barbie" exhibit at London's Natural History Museum, sculptor Marc Quinn has decapitated Barbie and smeared her torso with blood-red paint. Mattel, the show's sponsor, says it may not include Quinn's work. But the artist, who has used his own blood in past sculpture, tells the press it's "quite a light piece" and says he's "chucking the rest of the body out ... I'm not going to try and get to the inner depths of Barbie." Who knew she had any? salon.com | Oct. 20, 1999