The biggest career advice you can take: it never gets better, there is no good fight, and you should flee to save yourself.
I expect the parent post [edit: iamleppert] was blameless, but that won't save you in most companies. I dream of a company that actually gives a crap about the people writing their code, but HR / Management will always back the a??hole to preserve the company. Maybe instead of hiring widget managers they would find people who have "shipped" creative endeavors (TV Shows, plays, etc.). Don't know if it would work, but it cannot be worse.