Where the Chickens Would Come Home to Roost, If Yahoo and Microsoft Ever Did Do a Search Deal

In Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call earlier this week, new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz went out of her way to ho-hum all over the possibility of a search deal with Microsoft. Of course, it was all cooked up and well rehearsed by Bartz, who knows how to play the expectations game as well as anyone else, especially as she endeavors to come up to speed on the various prospects for Yahoo going forward. It’s called, um, playing chicken.