Hurd bats last today, and right now he's rounding second and it looks like it will be at least a stand-up triple.
What Hurd faced today is the problem that documents show he was involved in approving part of the email sting on CNet reporter Dawn Kawamoto.
Hurd is hanging on to his plausible deniablity that he knew nothing about how the sting worked and that it involved a kind of spyware known as a web bug. He's saying that he simply approved the content of the truthful leak of information that the web bug accompanies.
When Congressman Michael Burgress (R-Texas) finally pushed him on why he would approve the leak of information, without knowing and approving the method of the sting, Hurd had a defensible answer.
"We hoped that the person who got the information would call back into the company to verify the information," Hurd said.
Hurd is also either really earnest about cleaning house at HP or he's really great at acting like he believes in ethics.
"I am in charge of the company, Hurd said. "We had breakdowns at multiple levels. Responsibility goes across entire company including myself."
Moreover, Congressman Jay Inslee (D-Washington) has been railing all day that some unknown force in the Republican House leadership is preventing a vote on a bill banning pretexting. He's even insinuated, in questioning of ex-HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn, that the timing of an HP memo pointed to HP actually being the one holding the bill down.
Hurd promptly promised to support that bill, after Inslee asked him to call the Speaker of the House this afternoon.
Finally, Wall Street loves HP's turnaround under Hurd. Given that three high-level HP executives and the chairwoman of the board have now resigned, Wall Street and business analysts are likely to feel that there's been enough ritual bloodletting.
Hurd may not get all the way home today, but Congress certainly didn't strike Hurd out.
