• Ad Age, Monday, December 11, 2006 11:30 AM

The scandalous Julie Roehm saga is just the most recent incident in a series of bad news for Wal-Mart, including shrinking same-store sales in November, a fake blog from independent PR shop Edelman and embarrassing leaks of internal personnel memos. Roehm's firing is also the latest abrupt reversal in a marketing strategy that has looked rudderless.

A senior executive at one Wal-Mart supplier compared CEO Lee Scott to George W. Bush and suggested that Scott appoint the equivalent of the President's Iraq Study Group to recommend a way out of his own quagmire. "If he doesn't, he should be replaced immediately," the executive suggests.

One factor that could keep Scott and other top executives in place, despite the problems they face, is that seemingly all potential successors are also tainted by performance issues or association with discredited executives.

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