Hewlett-Packard chairwoman Patricia Dunn (pictured) told a business group in San Francisco last night that she hoped the Pope would keep making controversial comments so that her company’s spying scandal wouldn’t get so much media attention. Dunn was inducted into the Bay Area Council’s Business Hall of Fame at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. “All I will say about the maelstrom is that I look forward eagerly, in the near future, to setting the record straight and going back to leading my life as discretely as possible,” Dunn said during her acceptance speech. “And in the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt if the Pope continued to make controversial comments to grab the attention of the press.” She also said: “I am fully alive to the irony of being inducted into the Bay Area Council Hall of Fame at this time. If you want to know how you too can be inducted one day into the Hall of Fame, my advice is to keep your name from being bandied about in the press with the word ‘gate’ afterwards.” (AP photo)

UPDATE

• CNET’s Charles Cooper (commentary): “The perfect media event. Dunn was guaranteed to get gobs of publicity for a speech to a sympathetic crowd — and nobody was allowed to ask uncomfortable questions.”

• BusinessWeek Online: HP press conference set for 1:05 p.m. Friday in Palo Alto. CEO Mark Hurd says, “We plan to give as much clarity as we can to these matters.”