Four years ago, I stopped wondering who the Bengals' quarterback should be, if a new coach would turn things around, or who the team might pick in the first round of the NFL draft. After Bruce Coslet quit, it was obvious the only person that mattered was the man in the corner office strangling the business.

What Mike Brown did Monday morning - fire Dick LeBeau - was sad but not surprising. What he said - no changes in how the Bengals are run - was stubborn, arrogant and stupid. Mostly, it was familiar.

Mike Brown lives in a time warp. He hasn't changed since he inherited the team. Monday, Dec.30, 2002, was the same as Dec.24, 1991, when Brown parted ways with Sam Wyche. Mike Brown is the same now as he was then, only richer.

In a town that is reeling, a town where the news is consistently bad, from racial tension to crumbling schools to a dying center, the Bengals could offer a sunbeam of hope. They could help revive Cincinnati's beaten-down spirit. Sports has that kind of power.

Mike Brown has that kind of power.

Some who benefit from public generosity are givers: Procter &Gamble, Carl Lindner, Marge Schott. Mike Brown is a taker. He might be the biggest taker the city has ever seen.

When Brown said Monday, "Do I intend to (hire a general manager)? No, I do not," what it sounded like was, "I don't care about the fans or the city." When he proclaimed he wouldn't change the way the Bengals are run, the last drops of your patience, loyalty and goodwill could be heard circling the drain.

With the Bengals, changing the coach without changing the front office is like curing lung cancer by removing a spleen. Mike Brown has created the Mona Lisa, without the face. When you take an exam in college and only get half the answers right, you flunk the test.

I don't know why Brown does this. I spent a few years in the mid-90s trying to figure it out. Then I figured it really didn't matter. Brown keeps his own counsel, so there's been no use asking anyone about him. He's alone in the castle tower, working to achieve some unknowable end.

Normal folks would react to 2-14 - the national punch lines, the on-field ridicule, the coaches' inability to count to 11 - with anger and drastic action. They would see the threatened lawsuits, the half-empty stadium, the sadness of current and former players, and the heartbreak of the fans, and they'd feel ... something.

Mike Brown says, "Do I intend to hire a general manager? No, I do not."

A normal man might look at 12 years of futility and wonder what had gone wrong. Closer scrutiny might suggest he was the problem, especially if he were the only constant during that time. Mike Brown puts his family on the payroll.

I could go on. But you know all of it already. We're in the looking-glass, backwards. Groundhog Millennium is here.

Don't think the NFL will help. The NFL doesn't care about Cincinnati. The NFL would like to see the Bengals in Los Angeles and the Cincinnati market turned over to Cleveland and Indianapolis. It'd be better for TV. The NFL is all about TV.

Don't hope to get a proven coach in here. It's just like free agents: The good ones laugh at the Bengals, or retire. The ones looking for one more paycheck check the Bengals out. No coach with an option better than an iron lung and an IV drip will work for Mike Brown.

We local media perpetuate the curious notion that Brown is a good businessman, good apparently being defined as the ability to leverage a new playpen while threatening to blow town. But good businessmen don't make chronically bad business decisions without changing course.

And if you believe, as I do, that the best businessmen use some of their wealth for the general good, Mike Brown isn't a good businessman. He's Mr.Potter in "It's A Wonderful Life."

Potter fired Dick LeBeau on Monday. LeBeau was the lucky one.

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com