Mellon v. Mellon

Only in Pittsburgh. Follow carefully.

Richard Mellon Scaife, publisher of the Tribune-Review, publishes an editorial that calls for the head of Mellon Financial Corp. CEO Martin McGuinn.

We commend to your attention the names of nine members of Mellon's 15-member board. Some are local; others once were. Lest they look forward to a personal black eye, we call on them to grow a spine and do their civic duty in aiding a city that can afford to lose nothing more.

These high achievers must see to it that Mellon's management changes direction and, most specifically, that the stubborn and arrogant Mr. McGuinn is removed -- long before the September 2007 deadline for retirement he set for himself.

In the Post-Gazette, McGuinn fires back:

"But with both the organic growth that we are showing now, very good momentum and our ability to make acquisitions to fit our strategy, we think our shareholders are being well served," Mr. McGuinn said. Management believes "our strategy is the right one for Mellon."

Still, in a different P-G interview, McGuinn said that the Trib editorial was "beneath response."

If you look at this on the merits, it seems clear that Pittsburgh's future as a financial center is cloudy -- at best. It's hardly clear that re-energizing Mellon
is likely to save the company at all, let alone save it here in Pittsburgh.

The real story, though, may be that we're watching the last breaths of an old Pittsburgh family feud. That Scaife hates the Mellons, and moderate Republicans generally, is pretty well-known. A detail that I hadn't heard before -- but that was forwarded to me by someone in the local MSM -- is that the Trib's antipathy towards McGuinn may be payback for McGuinn's failure to support George W. Bush during the last election.

As if we don't have more important things to worry about. Maybe if the P-G didn't give the story any dignity, we could set aside grudges past, and focus on grudges yet to come.