Definition of a Circle Jerk?

aka Bank of America’s board:

ts members are expected to vote Wednesday on the addition of three directors from Merrill Lynch: Charles O. Rossotti, who was the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in the 1990s; Joseph W. Prueher, also a retired Navy admiral and former ambassador to China; and Virgis W. Colbert, a former executive at Miller Brewing, according to two people briefed on the agenda. Their approval would raise the number of board members to 20, and would tighten the web that already binds many of the board’s current representatives. Mr. Prueher, for example, met Mr. Franks in the 1990s, when he was commander in chief of the United States Pacific and Mr. Franks was a division commander in Korea. And Mr. Colbert is a member of Augusta National, the Georgia-based golf club, where Mr. McColl, the bank’s former chief, is also a member.

Among its members are Monica Lozano, who publishes La Opinión, a Los Angeles daily, and Patricia E. Mitchell, the former PBS chief. “The perception that Bank of America’s board is provincial and insular does not hold up when you look at the composition,” he said.

Yet some board members are connected in other ways that reveal strong cross-pollinations with other company boards. For example, two of Bank of America’s directors serve as trustees at NStar, a utility company in Massachusetts that is headed by yet another Bank of America board member, Thomas J. May. And the Lowe’s Companies, the home improvement retailer, counts one of Bank of America’s directors as its former chief executive, and another as a current member of the Lowe’s board.

Bank of America’s two most influential members hail from North Carolina. The board’s independent lead director, Mr. Sloan, the founder of an auto parts company, lives in Raleigh. Mrs. Spangler is married to a well-known local businessman, C. D. Spangler, a former president of the University of North Carolina who once shared an apartment in the city with Mr. McColl, the former leader of the bank.