Present-day emperors

Excuse the absence of finished thought as I bounce around an old idea.

A few years ago I was thinking about mogul-types in the modern era, the heirs apparent to Ford and Carnegie. And I don't mean Bill Gates or Donald Trump, either. I'm talking about those men who humbly found themselves in a position of leadership and then made that position great. They essentially gave themselves an inordinate and otherwise unlikely amount of political power, and remained such institutions that they basically gained the ability to leave their job whenever they wanted. They became emperors of their own niche.

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve. Jack Valenti, (former) head of the Motion Picture Association of America. Juan Antonio Samaranch, (former) president of the International Olympic Committee. I'm sure there are others, but these three came to mind.

I suppose the idea returned to me as the Federal Reserve announced their rate increases today. Greenspan was appointed by President Reagan in 1987, and has served five terms since. He's been given a kind of reverence not usually seen outside of the Vatican, such that an entire industry of market analysts were created seemingly for the purpose of interpreting his every word.

Valenti became chief executive officer of the MPAA in 1966, when the biggest threat to movies was television. He ditched the censorship code and adopted the current rating system. He also foresaw the advent of film theft, starting with the videocassette and moving on to digital piracy. He retired last year.

Samaranch headed the IOC from 1980 to 2001. He is credited with the advance of women's Olympic sports and fighting apartheid, and he brought the Games to Barcelona, his hometown. But he also was in charge when the process of city selection became an obscenely corrupt form of big business, culminating in the scandals surrounding the Salt Lake City choice.

It's telling that Dan Glickman and Jacques Rogge, the men who replaced Valenti and Samaranch, have not sought the same kind of political influence and have consciously scaled back the scope of their position. It's almost as if they know that kind of power is a thing of the past. Speculation continues to run rampant about Greenspan's eventual resignation, and the likelihood that someone just like him is needed as his replacement.

I'd like to think that guys like these would make an interesting subject for a feature-length documentary. Sort of an Errol Morris approach to a Michael Moore subject. If there are any aspiring filmmakers out there, knock yourself out. Just make sure to list me in the end credits in the "Special Thanks to" section.