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Oct 12 2007 2:27PM EDT

Sallie Mae: I was, uh... uh... I was...

As you might expect, Jack Flack almost always enjoys reading what "Business Press Maven" Marek Fuchs dispenses at TheStreet.com But today's much-deserved caning of Sallie Mae boss Albert Lord deserves special applause. The Maven reports:

"The new reigning most creative excuse maker is Sallie Mae (SLM) , the troubled student-loan lender. When reporting a net loss of $344 million vs. a profit of $263 million a year ago, its chairman said at a shareholders meeting that ... the pending buyout made him lose his concentration.

"'It's clear that the deal distractions are significant,' said Albert L. Lord. 'They cost us earnings momentum.'"

The Maven goes on to nicely dissect the excuse, and then carves up the business press that reported it unchallenged.

But Jack Flack would also like to pile on by drilling into the diabolical nature of Lord's language constructions. Many executives use the passive voice to distance themselves from any accountability for ugly events, with the classic passive line -- "Mistakes were made" -- still getting plenty of work.

But Lord goes beyond the normal distancing. First, he identifies the existence of these things called "distractions," as if they are independent forces of nature with no connection to the behaviors of Lord and his team. Then he labels them as "significant," to make it clear that they're so dang big that surely nobody could expect mere mortals succeed against them. And finally, he says the distractions "cost us earnings momentum," confirming that the distractions are actively rifling through Lord's pockets.

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