It seems that Julie Roehm would have been better off just keeping quiet and going ahead with her lawsuit with Wal-Mart (WMT). It looks like she thinks the tactics she's used in the past for her marketing efforts can be used to win the court of public opinion. I think she's wrong.
Instead of fighting what she says were false allegations by Wal-Mart, she's instead trying to make others like billioinaire Irwin Jacobs, chairman of boat manufacturer Genmar Holdings Inc., look like he had offering Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott special deals in return for hirig Scott's son; which would have violated Wal-Mart policy.
This is an obvious attempt to take the focus off of her and what she did, and put the focus on the alleged actions of others. This isn't going to work. First of all, 
what is being said has to be true, you can't market or manufacture situations that don't exist.
The response by Jacobs to Roehms attacks were he demanded that she retract her statements. She refused, and so Jacobs sued her in a Benton County, Ark., Circuit Court for defamation. "All these statements are wholly false and were made with malice," said Jacobs' complaint, filed Friday.
There has been a puzzling thing in this case that I've wondered about for awhile: Why haven't those that allegedly gave gifts Roehm come forward to defend her? Their silence is deafening.
Julie Roehm is fighting for her professional life here, and it seems she's doing it alone. The latest attempts to deflect the attention away from the merits of the case and point to others' alleged improprieties, shows me she's starting to panic. It's possible she's being counseled to do these things, but if she is, it's poor counsel. You can't just accuse anybody you want when you want and not think you'll have to pay the consequences.
Roehm is trying to fight far too many battles, while not focusing on the only one that really matters - with Wal-Mart.
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