WASHINGTON -- The Constitution enumerates three requirements of those who would be president (they must be natural-born citizens at least 35 and a resident within the country for 14 years) and now the governments thrashing about in the economy imposes a fourth: Presidents must be able to speak pluperfect nonsense with a straight face lest the country understand what the government is doing. Obfuscation serves political salvation when what the government is doing includes promising that if Chrysler will sell itself to Fiat U.S. taxpayers will lend that Italian firm $6 billion.
Barack Obama displayed reality-denying virtuosity last week when announcing the cashiering of General Motors CEO and naming his replacement and as the government was prompting selection of a new majority of GMs board of directors and as the government announced the next deadline for GM to submit a more satisfactory viability plan than it submitted at the last faux deadline and as the government kept the billions flowing to tide GM over until well whenever the president said: The United States government has no interest in running GM.
Actually his administration prefers to do that rather than allow bankruptcy to infuriate the United Auto Workers union which was pre-emptively grateful to Obamas administration with lavish contributions to candidate Obama. The president supposedly showed toughness in sacking a conspicuous member of a particularly unpopular little cohort CEOs of big corporations. He will need more grit if as his administration hints this time it is serious that its patience is wearing thin that someday GM could face controlled or prepackaged or surgical bankruptcy. One suspects that those adjectives intimate that it will be faux bankruptcy gentle in dealing with the UAW.
Last November five months and $17.4 billion in auto bailouts ago this column noted: Some opponents of bankruptcy say: GM must not be allowed to fail before it perfects batteries for its electric-powered Volt which supposedly is a key to the companys resurrection. This vehicle was concocted to serve GMs prolonged attempt to ingratiate itself with the few hundred environmentally obsessed automotive engineers in Congress. They have already voted tax credits of up to $7500 for purchasers of such cars -- bribes that reveal doubts about consumer enthusiasm for them at a price that would reflect cost.
In December GM by then a mendicant groveling before its congressional masters ran a full-page newspaper ad apologizing for having disappointed everyone vowing to stop selling so many pickups and SUVs (which were 11 of GMs 20 most profitable products in 2008) and promising revolutionary new products like the Chevrolet Volt. Another ad which appeared before December and is still running features a car attached to an electric cord and says the Volt amounts to reinventing the automobile.
Last week in an unenthralled summary of GMs viability plan Obamas administration said: GM earns a large share of its profits from high-margin trucks and SUVs which are vulnerable to a continuing shift in consumer preference to smaller vehicles. Additionally while the Chevy Volt holds promise it will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term.
The stunning shift in consumer preferences that should make the White Houses freshly minted auto experts feel vulnerable has been reported under headlines such as Like a Rock: Hybrid Car Sales Plummet (Wall Street Journal Dec. 9) and Hybrid Car Sales Go from 60 to 0 at Breakneck Speed (Los Angeles Times March 17). Absent $4 gasoline customers those nuisances with their insufferable preferences do not want the vehicles the politicians want them to want even with manufacturers now offering large rebates and other incentives.
The two best-selling vehicles in America this year are large pickup trucks (Ford F-Series and Chevy Silverado). In February Toyota sold 13600 Tundra and Tacoma pickups and 7232 Priuses. It sells the Prius at a loss which it can afford to do because it makes pots of money selling pickups. Has the Car Designer in Chief aka the president considered the possibility that what he calls the cars of tomorrow will forever be that?
His administration cannot be faulted for failing to do well what cannot be done well -- industrial policy wherein the political class with negligible experience in commerce flounders. The administration can however be faulted for trying. The governments wallow in the automobile industry under this and the previous administration merits a hockey coachs evaluation of his team: Everyday you guys look worse and worse. And today you played like tomorrow.
George F. Will is a 1976 Pulitzer Prize winner whose columns are syndicated in more than 400 magazines and newspapers worldwide.
WASHINGTON -- The Constitution enumerates three requirements of those who would be president (they must be natural-born citizens at least 35 and a resident within the country for 14 years) and now the governments thrashing about in the economy imposes a fourth: Presidents must be able to speak pluperfect nonsense with a straight face lest the country understand what the government is doing. Obfuscation serves political salvation when what the government is doing includes promising that if Chrysler will sell itself to Fiat U.S. taxpayers will lend that Italian firm $6 billion.
Barack Obama displayed reality-denying virtuosity last week when announcing the cashiering of General Motors CEO and naming his replacement and as the government was prompting selection of a new majority of GMs board of directors and as the government announced the next deadline for GM to submit a more satisfactory viability plan than it submitted at the last faux deadline and as the government kept the billions flowing to tide GM over until well whenever the president said: The United States government has no interest in running GM.
Actually his administration prefers to do that rather than allow bankruptcy to infuriate the United Auto Workers union which was pre-emptively grateful to Obamas administration with lavish contributions to candidate Obama. The president supposedly showed toughness in sacking a conspicuous member of a particularly unpopular little cohort CEOs of big corporations. He will need more grit if as his administration hints this time it is serious that its patience is wearing thin that someday GM could face controlled or prepackaged or surgical bankruptcy. One suspects that those adjectives intimate that it will be faux bankruptcy gentle in dealing with the UAW.
Last November five months and $17.4 billion in auto bailouts ago this column noted: Some opponents of bankruptcy say: GM must not be allowed to fail before it perfects batteries for its electric-powered Volt which supposedly is a key to the companys resurrection. This vehicle was concocted to serve GMs prolonged attempt to ingratiate itself with the few hundred environmentally obsessed automotive engineers in Congress. They have already voted tax credits of up to $7500 for purchasers of such cars -- bribes that reveal doubts about consumer enthusiasm for them at a price that would reflect cost.
In December GM by then a mendicant groveling before its congressional masters ran a full-page newspaper ad apologizing for having disappointed everyone vowing to stop selling so many pickups and SUVs (which were 11 of GMs 20 most profitable products in 2008) and promising revolutionary new products like the Chevrolet Volt. Another ad which appeared before December and is still running features a car attached to an electric cord and says the Volt amounts to reinventing the automobile.
Last week in an unenthralled summary of GMs viability plan Obamas administration said: GM earns a large share of its profits from high-margin trucks and SUVs which are vulnerable to a continuing shift in consumer preference to smaller vehicles. Additionally while the Chevy Volt holds promise it will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term.
The stunning shift in consumer preferences that should make the White Houses freshly minted auto experts feel vulnerable has been reported under headlines such as Like a Rock: Hybrid Car Sales Plummet (Wall Street Journal Dec. 9) and Hybrid Car Sales Go from 60 to 0 at Breakneck Speed (Los Angeles Times March 17). Absent $4 gasoline customers those nuisances with their insufferable preferences do not want the vehicles the politicians want them to want even with manufacturers now offering large rebates and other incentives.
The two best-selling vehicles in America this year are large pickup trucks (Ford F-Series and Chevy Silverado). In February Toyota sold 13600 Tundra and Tacoma pickups and 7232 Priuses. It sells the Prius at a loss which it can afford to do because it makes pots of money selling pickups. Has the Car Designer in Chief aka the president considered the possibility that what he calls the cars of tomorrow will forever be that?
His administration cannot be faulted for failing to do well what cannot be done well -- industrial policy wherein the political class with negligible experience in commerce flounders. The administration can however be faulted for trying. The governments wallow in the automobile industry under this and the previous administration merits a hockey coachs evaluation of his team: Everyday you guys look worse and worse. And today you played like tomorrow.
George F. Will is a 1976 Pulitzer Prize winner whose columns are syndicated in more than 400 magazines and newspapers worldwide.
