As we enter day four of AOL-Time Warner, the biggest merger in history, how do we feel? Is this still a smart deal?
    Don't ask Wall Street. Investors appear totally confused, and their confusion appears to be taking an angry turn. And when investors get angry, they punish.
    Punish indeed. Investors are punishing the deal-makers and their arguments for great synergies between old and new media.
     They are also punishing such major players as Disney and News Corp., who either have no partnerships in the works or, worse, dare to say they have no intention of partnering up in the wake of  AOL-Time Warner.
      Hardest hit has been AOL, whose stock dropped $4.50 yesterday, to $60, and whose worth has declined a full 20 percent since the deal was announced, to the surprise of all, early Monday morning.
      Time Warner stock also fell yesterday, by $5.375, to $79.626 a share, but it still remains well above its price before the deal. Last Friday the stock was trading at $60, then rose to $90 on Monday, only to slip to $86 on Tuesday as some of the euphoria began to wear off.
     In all, the deal--the value of the two companies--has declined by $20 billion in just three days, from $300 billion to $280 billion.
      Among the other wounded is News Corp., whose stock fell 10 percent on Tuesday, following a blunt pronouncement from Chairman Rupert Murdoch that, hell no, he had no intention of partnering. 
      Disney also took a hit yesterday when its stock dropped $2.5625, to $33.6875. Compounding its problems, in addition to pressure over the merger, was the resignation of  studio boss Joe Roth, chairman of Walt Disney Studios for the past four years. 
      Roth's departure, though no surprise, comes as Disney boss Michael Eisner struggles with a passel of troubles, from depressed earnings to highly publicized stumblings in merging studio operations with ABC, to the flow of red ink from his internet unit, Go Network. 
     Does all this stockholder angst bode ill for AOL-Time Warner?
      The deal-makers are saying no, they have the big institutions investors on their side, and those big voices, controlling great chunks of both companies, are poised to weather out the turmoil.
      But the deal-makers may not have as much control as they think. The  merger must be approved by more than half the shareholders of each company, and as time goes on the deal-makers can expect doubts to grow.
      There are two areas of concern that could undo the deal. 
      One is whether there is in fact any real synergy between the two companies. That Time Warner has so far stumbled in creating an internet presence is a given. But there is no sustainable argument that AOL represents the cure, that AOL locking arms with Time Warner will instantly create the fully unified media presence. Things like that don't happen in the adult world.
      Two is whether the two cultures can ever be brought together. They are as opposite as fire and water, AOL centralized, structured and slightly dull, Time Warner fragmented, in many ways ego-driven, and used to making its own decisions. Such cultures don't merge.