Look, Qwest, it’s one thing to get your butt kicked by a far superior company, it’s another thing to blame everyone and everything except your own pitiful condition for losing a fight nobody but you and the guy who picked Mondale to beat Reagan thought you had a shot of winning.

Qwest dropped out of the bidding war for MCI Inc. on Monday after MCI agreed to another new deal with Verizon, rejecting a higher-priced bid from Qwest for the fourth time.

Fourth time! I was turned down by a lot of girls in college but nobody, nobody had to turn me down four times. Two or three was usually sufficient for me to get the message.

“It is no longer in the best interests of shareowners, customers and employees to continue in a process that seems to be permanently skewed against Qwest,” the Denver-based company groused in a statement. “We pursued MCI with tenacity and discipline and feel strongly that our bid would have brought far more value to MCI shareholders.”

Whatever Qwest might have “felt” is irrelevant, since a large number of MCI’s most important business customers had indicated that they preferred a transaction between MCI and Verizon rather than a transaction between MCI and Qwest, according to MCI’s statement, as of course any sentinent business customer would.

“Additionally, as their contracts come up for renewal,” MCI said, “a number of customers have also requested rights to terminate their arrangements with MCI in the event of a Qwest transaction. These customer concerns, in the board’s view, pose risks in connection with a Qwest transaction.”

MCI customers had also expressed concern that Qwest overestimated potential cost savings and possible liabilities from shareholder suits related to $2.5 billion in overstated sales at Qwest. Overstating sales is a, uh, crime, Qwest. You wonder why a company’s not crazy about being taken over by you? Think an orphan’d be excited about getting adopted into a Mafia family going broke fast?

“Permanently skewed against Qwest…” Let me point out, as gently as I can and in as sensitive a manner as I can, that Qwest, your company is gurgling down the toilet while Verizon has nothing but blue skies ahead. Can’t understand why MCI wanted to hitch their wagon to Verizon’s Queen Elizabeth II instead of your Tid-E-Bowl boat of a company holed below the waterline.

Yeah, “permanently skewed against” you the way Julia Roberts is “permanently skewed against” a skid row bum with vomit on his shoes who’s trying to give her a gold plastic “wedding ring” he just pried off the neck of a shampoo bottle. Verizon is the biggest phone company in the United States. Qwest is the biggest phone company in Wyoming.

A spokesman for Qwest Communications International Inc. said the decision to retreat was “final.” Inshallah.

Look, it’s one thing to jump in the ring, hopelessly outclassed, which Qwest did, and put up a decent fight for a few rounds, which Qwest did, before getting your clock cleaned, which everybody in the world knew would happen. It’s quite another thing to then whine and bitch about how unfair and “skewed” it is when you, the 98-pound weakling get your brains beat out by Mike Tyson.

See, Qwest, in case you haven’t noticed, you have $17.5 billion in debt and just $14 billion in annual revenue, and you’re one of the most highly leveraged carriers in telecom. Your stock price has fluctuated wildly the past year and some believe it was illegally manipulated this past week just to keep your Quixotic bid alive.

That’s you. Verizon is the country’s largest communications company and No. 1 phone company, with more than $70 billion in annual revenue. It also has a majority stake in Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 carrier behind Cingular.

That’s Verizon. Can you hear them now? If you need it drawn in crayon imagine Verizon as Rhett Butler and you as Eddie Munster.

But Qwest “bristled anew” at its latest self-inflicted rejection. Qwest also dismissed the factually correct negative appraisal of its financial health and business prospects that MCI’s board used in justifying a lower-priced deal with Verizon, evidently on the grounds that in Qwest’s estimation preferring the largest and most stable communications company in America to a company taking on water faster than the Titanic shows “that MCI is more interested in bending to Verizon’s will than serving its shareholders.”

I discipline my five-year old son for that kind of whiny pouting since it’s beneath his age.

Both MCI and New York-based Verizon stressed that their merger will protect the interests of MCI investors by providing greater comfort for MCI’s valuable base of corporate customers, which it no doubt will.

Qwest was last seen mumbling about sinister forces arrayed against it being controlled by radio transmissions from the planet Zeembo, where flatlining companies flailing about to see who else they can gut and drag down with them are considered preferable takeover candidates by corporate customers.
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