This image was lost some time after publication.

Somewhere in cine-Musketeer heaven, Jack Valenti is quietly weeping. He's still alive? Oh. Well then, to paraphrase the President, he must be doubly weeping from the ground. Dan Glickman, his 'meh' successor as head of the MPAA, has admitted the unthinkable: he needs help. From today's Variety:

Two heads are better than one for the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

Org has found an insider to head up its L.A. operations, tapping Bob Pisano as president and chief operating officer to work alongside the org's Dan Glickman. Move marks the first time that the MPAA has divided duties at the top.

Glickman, who had been prexy-CEO since succeeding Jack Valenti a little over a year ago, retains the CEO title and also becomes chairman.

Thursday's announcement surprised some in the pic biz, though the move had been in the works for several months. It is being touted as a kickstart for the MPAA to respond more effectively to the growing problem of worldwide piracy. [...]

"Bob's got such a good reputation," Glickman said. "Everyone calls him a mensch."

Pisano, a one-time studio exec and most recently CEO of the Screen Actor's Guild, has the industry experience and relationships that Glickman, former Secretary of Agriculture in Clinton's administration, is sorely lacking. But it's this description of him as a 'mensch' that I find worrisome. You can't say 'mensch' without saying 'meh.' Does a mensch have bloodlust? A facility with magical, Tolkienesque imagery and a virtuosic command of the poetry of Sturm und Drang? When a mensch views a hostage beheading video, does he fancy himself the knife-wielding crusading zealot, and the whimpering, doomed European journalist the DVD-pirate? Does he then swear on the blood of a thousand out-of-work stuntmen to destroy the very interweb on which said video was dispersed? Valenti's legacy deserves nothing less.