Obama Volt from the blue

Kyle Smith:

Inside the White House, it was March Madness heading into April Fool's Day when the president issued his comically inept proposal to save GM. Maybe Obama thought a few jokes would cheer up GM in its hour of need.

Take this zinger, from the term paper his administration threw together after boning up on the car industry for a couple of weeks: Government Motors must straighten itself out "in 60 days." The firm, which has been stuck in traffic on the Road to Restructure for 30 years, is going to figure out how to solve its legacy costs in 60 days just because the government is telling it to? Hey, Obama, you've got 60 days to wrap up Afghanistan. What, having a deadline doesn't make it easier? You're fired. Biden, take over.

In the same paper, Obama's team dissed the Chevy Volt, the electric car dubbed 'the Barack Obama of automobiles' by The Atlantic. How right they were. Like Barack Obama, the Volt is a fuzzy little puff of idealism that makes no sense where rubber meets road. No one is going to pay SUV prices - $40,000! - for a tiny clown car and the Volt needs to be charged for six hours to provide a 40-mile ride. Electric cars don't make carbon emissions disappear, either. They merely outsource them to the nearest plant (which is more likely to run on coal than anything else.)

GM only invented the Volt because it was hoping the government would come pimp their ride with subsidies. But now Team Obama's report says the car is not "commercially viable." So Obama is killing the Obamamobile. Live by the government, die by the government.

"GM," noted the Obama paper, "earns a disproportionate share of its profits from high-margin trucks and SUVs and is thus vulnerable to energy cost-driven shifts in consumer demand." Waiting in line for his unemployment check, Rick Wagoner is slapping his forehead and going, "Man, these guys are smart! Why didn't I hit on the idea of making small, unprofitable cars that nobody will buy? Wait a sec, I did."

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Just two days after replacing Wagoner with Fritz Henderson and declaring him the new permanent chief, the administration arranged for an official to tell the Journal that Henderson will be boss only "as long as we're satisfied he's executing." So, not so permanent after all. More like, "When you come in to work tomorrow, maybe we'll have changed the locks. Depends on how we feel."

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GM would have been better off declaring bankruptcy before the government took over and made matters worse. Having amateurs like Obama and other government officials make business decisions for a company already in trouble is a recipe for disaster. If Ford can make it through the downturn without having to deal with the government, it has a chance to be the dominant motor company in this country and possibly the world. At least it can still make profitable vehicles unless the Democrats find a way to outlaw that too.