This is kind of an appropriate topic on a list named for the original LBOs. (For those younger than 30: Leveraged Buy Outs, where public firms were taken private using lots of debt, were all the rage in the 1980s when the Left Business Observer first set up its stand).
Smith thinks the new private equity versions of LBOs might turn out even worse than their junk-bond predecessors due to cov-lite agreements and the lack of DIP financing -- both of which he explains admirably by the end of his post:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/11/surprisingly-superficial-new-york-times.html
Michael