Bob Doll On Citigroup, Sandy Weill & Bob Rubin

Bob Doll, chief equity investment officer at Larry Fink's BlackRock, was the guest host this morning on CNBC's Squawkbox program.

At one point, Doll, Joe Kernen and Charlie Gasparino engaged in a discussion of Citigroup's situation. Gasparino had opined that the company might have to cut its dividend, which, of course, is a current major topic among those observing and analyzing the deeply troubled banking goliath.

Doll seemed to agree with Gasparino. Then the latter launched into a recounting of Citigroup architect Sandy Weill's mistakes, and the cloud under which he departed the firm. He asked Doll directly what he thought, prefacing his question by noting that nobody seems to criticize Weill, even now.

Bob Doll masterfully responded on both sides of the question, crediting Weill with

'growing the top line, while cutting the middle lines and still acquiring businesses,'

or words to that effect.

Then, when reminded of the mess Weill and Citi made of the Smith Barney acquisition, Doll nodded his head in assent.

Gasparino then moved onto Bob Rubin, criticizing the former Treasury Secretary's 'leadership' of the executive committee of the board, while earning outsized fees running into the tens of millions of dollars.

Again, Doll carefully pirouetted around the question, responding carefully on both sides.

As I sat watching Doll, a very powerful and successful guy in his own right, I marveled at how much fear guys like Weill and Rubin clearly induce in other financial service senior executives.

Here is the most senior equity executive at one of the most successful private investment management firms, clearly fearful of uttering a single critical word of a retired sector heavyweight, Weill, and a stumbling, inept current board leader, Rubin.

I don't know Doll at all, other than having seen him on CNBC and read about him in various Wall Street Journal stories. He seems to be a very capable, savvy and intelligent equity manager. You'd think he is relatively immune to reprisals from people like Weill or Rubin.

I guess not. It would seem that Doll is aware, or concerned, that any former or current senior executive in the sector could, one day soon, be either a prospective investor in, a senior executive at, or acquirer of his firm, Blackrock.

This being the case, it causes me to wonder why CNBC even bothers to have such guest hosts on their programs. Or even bothers to discuss current issues involving other companies or sector executives. It was clear Doll was unwilling to give candid, substantive on-camera assessments of Weill and Rubin. He wanted to be able to respond to any comments from the two with a protestation that he had said something positive in their defense.

Doesn't this sort of behavior make you question nearly any positive comments or observations made by one senior financial service sector executive about another?