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Disney Chairman George Mitchell was quick to defend the company's board against accusations that the search for Michael Eisner's successor wasn't thorough enough, and merely a rubber stamp of the half-assed variety for president/Anointed One Bob Iger:

In a conference call with reporters, Mitchell emphasized that the search was exhaustive, pointing to the 11 meetings the board convened in recent months to discuss succession and the "large number" of prospective candidates that were "evaluated" before Iger was tapped.

"We definitely had choices and we made the right choice," Mitchell said.

"What people needed to know was whether outsiders were interviewed for the job, because you can evaluate candidates all day but that doesn't mean they're interested in the job," said Stephen Mader, vice chairman of Christian & Timbers, a New York-based executive search firm. "One way to show that Iger was the best candidate would have been to have far more disclosure about the number of candidates interviewed."

Defamer has obtained the top-secret list of all candidates under consideration during the Disney board's exhaustive search, as well as the reasons their candidacies were stillborn:

· Yahoo CEO Terry Semel (too busy wiping himself with internet money)
· eBay CEO Meg Whitman (ditto, but needs both hands to wipe)
· Viacom Co-President Tom Freston (everything is super great at the New Paramount)
· News Corp President Peter Chernin (gets more money for sleeping underneath Rupert Murdoch's desk)
· Jesus Christ, Son of God (the Father has a far more generous stock option plan; heat has dissipated somewhat after Mel Gibson's release of The Passion Recut)
· Samuel Jones, Jr, star churro vendor at Disney World Orlando (background search revealed that he was busted down from a gig as Dopey after a "shoving incident" with a five-year-old guest)
· Walt Disney's Cryogenically Frozen Head (medical science hasn't advanced sufficiently to revive him, but there are still whispers that Disney's head may have reached an under-the-table power-sharing agreement with board members)