Now I have to disavow much of what I wrote above.

Not really; it's a fair hypothesis seeking data.

I'll attest to the general honesty of newspaper subscribers; I delivered the Detroit News in my youth.

re: "executives"

The label is to vague for the personality-type implied by dishonest, or abnormal, heuristics. You may want to look into research produced in organizational behavior. I waddled over to the closet (you fiend!) to dust of the ol' three-ring binder.

Surprising no one I hope, HBS publishes cases on the topic of "leadership characteristics" by the bushel (these are sold online, too). A classic on psychometric applications: "Kronos (A)" 9-393-05.

Mark Ain sat at his desk and wondered about what his role at his own company should be. Mark had founded Kronos, Inc., 13 years earlier. Now, in April 1990, it was a $35 million firm that manufactured and sold time accounting systems --essentially computerized time clocks. The month before, Mark had asked his chief operating officer (COO), Garret Lewis, to resign. During the past month, Mark had been wondering: should he try to find another COO to fill this spot, or should he manage Kronos's team of vice presidents himself? The week before, Mark had attended a training session given by Praendex, Inc. Praendex had developed a personality-assessment technique that it used to help business people understand their own behavior and management approach, as well as the behaviors and motivations of the people around them. This tool --the Praendex Indes-- had been used by other functions within Kronos for about a year, with excellent results.

Mark felt he'd learned a lot about himself --and about his management team-- from the Praendex Index training session. The question was, what insight did this provide to his current dilemma, and what solution, if any did it suggest?

LBS cases "Collapse of Barings (A), (B)" are pretty freaky, too.

Now, imagine how this pedagogy scales when some widget, oh say, Arne Duncan, obtains the authority to select and train the next generation of American "leaders."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.