Obama Saves GM

(Photo via Motortrend)

In Washington D.C., Barack Obama is the only grown up in the room and GM is just the latest evidence of that fact.  Many now admit he was right, but it may already be too late.  Palin 2012, anybody? (Updated)

 

President Obama saved the American auto industry at a time when the economy was teetering on the brink of collapse, when the fall of GM would have likely sent everything over the edge. Few remember that Obama was forced to decide what to do about GM the very moment he became president, after George Bush ducked the decision toward the end of his presidency by simply feeding the auto makers cash. Here's the NYT in December of 2008:

The emergency bailout of General Motors and Chrysler announced by President Bush on Friday gives the companies a few months to get their businesses in order, but hands off to President-elect Barack Obama the difficult political task of ruling on their future. The plan pumps $13.4 billion by mid-January into the companies from the fund that Congress authorized to rescue the financial industry.

Obama's saving of GM came at a time when it seemed anything that was large and moving received a government bailout, and the newly elected president was heavily criticized for his decision. His political opponents pointed to the GM bailout as evidence that Obama was a socialist, who wanted to run car companies in addition to being president. To those who dislike him most, Obama has always been little more than the CEO of Government motors. But as the only grown up in the room, Obama realized that as much as the government had an interest in preventing a GM from causing economic calamity, the government has always had an interest in allowing GM to fly or fall on its own merits. He didn't view the situation politically, instead choosing the option that made the most sense, and on this particular issue even his detractors have to admit he was right. The Economist in August, 2010, under the sub-heading "An apology is due to Barack Obama: his takeover of GM could have gone horribly wrong, but it has not" had this to say:

Lovers of free markets (including The Economist) feared that Mr Obama might use GM as a political tool: perhaps favouring the unions who donate to Democrats or forcing the firm to build smaller, greener cars than consumers want to buy. The label "Government Motors" quickly stuck, evoking images of clunky committee-built cars that burned banknotes instead of petrol—all run by what Sarah Palin might call the socialist-in-chief. Yet the doomsayers were wrong.

(Today marked GM's reentry into the private sector.) They were wrong of course because they assumed that like everyone else in Washington, Obama would operate like a spoiled child seeking to use GM purely for his own political success. Instead he did what he said he was going to do and that which made the most sense.  He provided a temporary scaffolding under the American auto industry and sought to release it as soon as possible. The problem with this line of behavior, for Obama, is that everyone else has spent the last two years behaving like children. Despite their retraction 3 months ago, The Economist, along with Sarah Palin and many others, have already succeeded in spreading the myth of Obama as, "socialist-in-chief." Few cared about what was actually happening, they were just certain that if Obama wasn't going to use GM for his political advantage they would. So Obama saved millions of people's jobs while his opponents just sat by and flung mud at him.  It's impossible to make serious decisions in an environment surrounded by these people, and yet the current leadership of this country is filled with them, save Barack Obama. But due to  the masterful political engineering of people like Sarah Palin, and their childlike behavior, he may not be there very long. 

Update: More evidence Obama is the only serious man left.  Michael Crowley @ Time magazine points to  the nuclear arms  treaty (START) that Obama negotiated with Russia.  Republicans in the Senate don't want to ratify it because it would be something successful that Obama has accomplished and they will have no part in that.  One longtime Republican Sen. and foreign policy expert, Sen. Richard Lugar, (interesting sidenote, I've met him before) is aghast that American foreign policy is being played with like its a child's toy.
   

(NYT's Sunday Magazine has a piece by Robert Draper, detailing the scary likelihood of Palin 2012.)