Obama Motors revs up

President Obama claims to "have no interest" in running General Motors. He does so with a straight face - and the same monotonous cadence that he employs whether condemning North Korea for nuclear explosions or joking with Jay Leno. But his actions, as well as his words, betray him. The significance of the bankruptcy and restructuring of General Motors isn't that it happened but the way it happened.

His protestations notwithstanding, this is Barack Obama's General Motors. Just read from his statement earlier this month:

** "Two months ago, I laid out what needed to be done to save two of America's most storied automakers."

** "I made it clear that I would not put any more tax dollars on the line if it meant perpetuating the bad business decisions that had led these companies to seek help in the first place."

** "I decided, then, that if GM and Chrysler and their stakeholders were willing to sacrifice, then the United States government would stand behind them."

Which is more absurd - his implication that he is the embodiment of the U.S. government or that a former community organizer, part-time lawyer, part-time lecturer, part-time author, and fulltime politician knows beans about running the nation's largest automaker?

Then again, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid scolded the auto execs last fall for flying - instead of crawling - to D.C. to ask for a government bailout and then arrogantly demanded that they come back when they have a "viable plan."

Not that it's ridiculous to demand a viable plan. What's ridiculous is the assumption that the Speaker, the Majority Leader and most other Beltway politicians could recognize a viable plan for a 25-cent lemonade stand - much less a multi-billion-dollar auto company.

Remember, the reason government is funded by taxes is because it produces almost nothing that people will pay for willingly.

It wasn't necessary for President Obama to interject himself into these proceedings. As Commentary magazine columnist Jennifer Rubin points out, GM and Chrysler have had bankruptcy attorneys working on those plans for months.

"Why make this all about the president throwing his weight around and personally firing the head of a major corporation?" she asks.

The simplest explanation is that Obama wants these details signed, sealed and delivered to prevent their scrutiny in a court of law where, for example, the United Auto Workers Union would not get preference over holders of secured corporate bonds.

As Hans Bader points out at OpenMarkets.org, "the UAW will receive at least ten times as much value as the bondholders even though the bondholders are owed more ($27 billion vs. $20 billion). This is neither legal nor fair."

Which brings us to President Obama's oft-repeated claim that his decisions are guided by the way they "affect the daily realities of people's lives."

Well, the ordinary folks whose retirement or savings were ravaged by automakers' plummeting stock prices are suffering doubly from Obama's devastating policy to force them to take pennies on the dollar if their portfolio also included GM bonds, which were once considered relatively safe.

By contrast, the very labor unions whose bloated benefits and anachronistic job protection schemes put GM at a competitive disadvantage are now rewarded with nearly $10 billion and 17.5 percent ownership in the company.

While Obama says UAW will be required to make "painful sacrifices," the union boasts that its members will see no reduction in 'base hourly pay, no reduction in health care, and no reduction in benefits."

Might the $13 million that UAW spent on last year's election have tipped the scales in its favor? Heavens, no!

So, GM hinges its recovery on the marketing genius of politicians who gave us Medicare, Social Security, Amtrak, a 3.4-million-word tax code, and $11.3 trillion in debt.

It's hard to imagine how a fire sale administered without Obama's oversight could have been more destructive or more expensive.

Mark Hillman served as senate majority leader and state treasurer. To read more or comment, go to www.MarkHillman.com

From Europe, hope for conservatism

The left in this country has made much of the big electoral victories that the Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 -- and for good reason.  Not since 1977, when Jimmy Carter swept to victory along with huge Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, has there been such lopsided partisan rule in this country. With Al Franken seemingly a lock to win the Minnesota Senate seat, the Democrats are on the verge of a 60 vote "supra majority" that is virtually filibuster proof. The immediate future seems to all be swinging the left's way, and all the things that come with it are now a foregone conclusion: major health care reform, tax increases, deficit spending and a spate of intensive, restrictive environmental regulation. But will it last? As we know, Jimmy Carter's 1977 victory gave way in just four years to the Reagan Revolution -- and though Barack Obama is much more politically sophisticated than was Carter, a former Georgia peanut farmer who was poorly schooled in the ways of Washington, there are many similarities thus far between the two presidencies. Carter took over after a period of eight years of Republican rule and in the wake of an unpopular war and scandal; his campaign was based on a promise to "change" Washington -- to clean up government and restore the nation's image in the world. The economy he inherited was suffering from high unemployment and high inflation -- and Carter's typical "tax and spend" policies made both worse. He oversaw the expansion of government with the creation of the Departments of Energy and Education, instituted price controls and rationing on energy, oversaw the bailout of a Detroit automaker (Chrysler) and pursued Middle East Peace by promoting the cause of the Arab states over those of Israel.

Sound familiar?

But it is not a lost cause, for as Carter gave way to Reagan, Obama's left-wing policies and programs may lead to a new conservative revolution.  In fact, there are now signs from Europe that the purported "death of conservatism" has been greatly exaggerated. As the BBC reports tonight, in European Parliament elections this weekend it appears that Center-right parties have made major gains: "Centre-right parties have done well in elections to the European Parliament at the expense of the left. Far-right and anti-immigrant parties also made gains, as turnout figures plunged to between 43 and 44%.

The UK Labour Party, Germany's Social Democrats and France's Socialist Party were heading for historic defeats.

• French President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP trounced socialist opponents, while greens from the Europe-Ecologie party also made gains
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing centre-right grouping lost ground but finished ahead of its rivals. The Social Democrats, Ms Merkel's partners in the grand coalition, saw their worst election showing since World War II
• In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition is ahead of the socialist opposition, with 36% of the vote
• In the UK, the governing Labour Party is expecting a serious defeat, gaining its lower share of the vote for a century
• Spain's governing Socialists were slightly behind the opposition Popular Party, according to partial results
• Poland's governing centre-right Civic Platform has gained ground at the expense of the Eurosceptic Law and Justice Party
• Early results show Portugal's ruling Socialists dropped a massive 18 percentage points, losing out mainly to Greens and far-left parties

It is no surprise, of course, that the UK Labour party under the inept leadership of Gordon Browne is in trouble, but the general performance of Center-right parties elsewhere shows that the leftward swing of Europe is now at a low-ebb. The victories in recent years of Sarkozy in France, Berlusconi in Italy and Merkel in Germany has put Center-right leadership in power in the three largest European states; should David Cameron of the Conservative party in the UK sweep to power in the next general election sometime in 2010, it will be a clean sweep. Granted, conservatism in Europe is of a different sort than that in the U.S., operating as it does within an extensive social democratic framework. But the fact remains that Europe is showing a fatigue with the kind of leftist socialism that has been in vogue there over the past decade.

Will the same thing happen here? Will America reject the big government policies of Obama, Pelosi and Reid in 2010 and 2012? Or will it take longer for the fatigue associated with big government, over-reguation and high taxation to set in?

My guess is that it will. Whatever Obama's personal popularity, the fact remains that America is essentially still a center-right country that generally dislikes both big government and high taxes. It won't be long until the honeymoon associated with the economic crisis of 2008-09 to run its course; Obama will soon own the deficit spending we are embarking on, and when Americans get a taste of Canada-style health care (and taxes), it won't be pretty.

It took Carter to give us Reagan. Obama will give us another historic opportunity to move the nation back toward individual liberty and economic freedom.

Obama is no friend of Israel

Last year I wrote a piece that examined the stark dichotomy in political views between American and Israeli Jews. American Jews vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, and see liberal policies -- both domestic and foreign -- as largely consistent with their world view. Indeed, in the 2008 election, 78% of American Jews voted for Obama -- an outcome that was a full 10 points better than most of the pre-election polling. Contrasted with the pre-election polling of Israeli Jews, which preferred John McCain by better than 2:1, and it is clear that their is a wide gulf between the reflexive idealism of American Jews and the sober realism of their Israeli counterparts. Today we have proof that Israeli Jews understood Obama better than those in America. In a widely anticipated speech today in Cairo, Obama gave his version of Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, pandering to Muslims by showing that he "feels their pain", apologizing for a litany of American sins, while drawing a stark moral relativism between Israeli and Palestinian violence. Indeed, Obama has now made clear that he sees Israel as just as much to blame for the continuing violence in the West Bank and Gaza, and has openly called for a "two state" solution to be the stated policy of the United States. Before he left on his trip to the Middle East -- where he pointedly chose not to visit Israel -- Obama called for a freeze on settlements in the West Bank -- a message he conveyed directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month.

For anyone paying attention, Obama's statements toward Israel are chilling -- and reflect the generally accepted belief among the left that the Palestinians are the victims and the Israelis are the aggressors.  Obama is quickly proving that old adage: with friends like these, who needs enemies?

There was much to dislike about Obama's message in Cairo, where he attempted to draw linkages between our Judeo-Christian history and Islam. It was pandering at its finest. Further, he gave this speech in Egypt -- one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East, and spent a good portion of the speech trying to explain away our efforts to bring democracy to millions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was yet another example of the leader of our nation taking great pains to minimize the good and noble sacrifices we have made in the name of freedom, while attempting to curry favor with regimes that continue to repress their people.

To American Jews I can only say this: you've been hoodwinked. Though you say overwhelmingly that the security of Israel is important to you, you have voted for a man who actively supports the appeasement of your terrorist enemies. By voting for Barack Obama, you have actually created a new existential threat -- that of an American administration focused on Palestinian rights and grievances, and committed to diplomacy with Iran and Syria. In one presidential election, you have done great damage to Israel -- a nation that you claim to love and cherish.

One can only hope that Benjamin Netanyahu has the moral courage to defy Obama and his appeasers; to remain steadfast in facing down the threats from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. It is Israel's only real hope for survival.

Socialized medicine: inefficient, unfair

Recently a message was sent to President Barack Obama’s supporters under his name that urged them to get behind his proposal for universal health care and castigated his critics. I share with him a desire to reform our health care system, but along lines completely different from those which he only vaguely explained. It is not very helpful, as Obama did, to sum up health reform in terms of "core principles" (reduced costs, guaranteed choice, and quality care for every American) when the means employed to fulfill them are unspecified. Nor does it help to oversimplify the issue, as he did, by equating support of the dreaded "status quo" with "half measures and empty talk."

Obama stigmatized critics, moreover, for "spread[ing] fear and confusion about the changes we seek." And then he proceeded to spread genuine "fear and confusion" about "spiraling health care costs" and failed to acknowledge how much government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid have contributed to those rising costs.

The President told the story of his late mother's battle with ovarian cancer, "spending too much time worrying about whether her health insurance would cover her bills," which is very moving but also verging on exploitation. Ovarian cancer presents a major challenge which even the most lavish health insurance cannot mount. No government program can end these worries.

We are responsible for our health. I'm no less mindful than Obama of the persons without health care, but dealing with that deficiency does not require socialism. As his opponent, John McCain, advocated last year, substantial tax credits for health savings accounts will help people who lack employer or government plans.

Before there was massive government involvement in health care, and before third-party payers dominated the field, costs were actually more manageable. Forty years ago my oldest son needed surgery that cost us, a young married couple of modest income, $500. I am sure it would cost many times more than that today, not only because of inflation but because of the proliferation of third-party plans, which shield consumers from the true cost of their care.

In any case, there is no more reason to socialize health care costs than the cost of food, transportation or housing. Obama may not want us to know that what he is proposing is socialism, but many of us don't need to have it spelled out. It is not fear-mongering to point to the experience of nations that already have government care, which entails artificial caps on costs and rationing. Only a free marketplace can bring consumers and providers together and enable them to agree to reasonable terms.

The President is only worsening the current difficulties by proposing more of the same government intervention. We must oppose him in order to preserve, and even return to, the limited government bequeathed to us by our founding fathers.

As a friend of many years has reminded me, however, for millions of Americans justice is central to the health care debate. He wrote: "We will end up with ‘socialized’ medicine unless our people are convinced that justice and fairness are better served, and good medicine is better provided, in a non-socialized system of health care. Many good Americans are willing to accept lesser care (up to a point) if they are persuaded that the promised new system would be more just and fair for each and all of us."

I think he is right. Liberals believe they have a monopoly on justice and fairness, erroneously equating equality of condition with equality of rights. The truth is, the free market exemplifies reciprocity in exchange, a form of justice, as doctors and hospitals provide a service for which they deserve to be paid, and patients deserve a say over costs. They have that say now for virtually all other commodities (automobiles now conspicuously excluded, thanks to President Obama), which makes them largely affordable.

But there is no justice in making some Americans subsidize the health care of others, nor is it fair to deny people health care because some bureaucrat decides that their needs aren’t as worthy as someone else’s. Imagine if food production, distribution and sales were socialized, and the government determined what we ought to be eating!

The American idea of justice is not, as Obama evidently believes, "From each according to his ability to each according to his need." Rather, it is our right to govern ourselves. It is better, as the early Pilgrims learned the hard way, for each person and/or family to use their abilities to provide for their needs. Justice and utility are in perfect alignment.

Is this the best we can do?

Much is being made of the Dick Cheney vs. Barack Obama "debate" now going on in the media over national security. The Wall Street Journal has it on the front page today, after Cheney and Obama gave dueling speeches yesterday -- Obama from the rotunda of the National Archives and Cheney from the American Enterprise Institute. As has been his consistent message, Obama again reiterated his view that the Bush administration had "gone off course" in using enhanced interrogation techniques and off-shore prisons, saying that he is seeking to restore "the power of our most fundamental values". The former Vice President, meanwhile is having none of it. Calling the Bush policies "legal, essential, justified, successful and the right thing to do", he again took on the administration's critics by pointing out that "After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked or scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed."

This is an exceedingly vital debate. President Obama has made decisions on the basis of politics that I believe are putting our nation at risk. He caved to the left in precipitously deciding to close Guantanamo without any alternative plan; now it turns out that many of the most hated Bush policies -- using military tribunals and indefinite detention -- will continue. Why? Because more than half of the remaining Guantanamo detainees are too dangerous to try in court or to release back into the civilized world. But where will they go once Guantanamo is closed? No one has a clue, because nobody in Congress wants these lethal prisoners in their backyard. In the halls of Congress, NIMBY is the rule -- unless, of course, it's pork.

The problem for those who think that Obama is on a dangerous path, however, is that it is Dick Cheney leading the charge. Where is the spokesperson for the opposition to this president who isn't past his prime and considered a cross between an "angry white man" and Darth Vader?

We know, of course, that John McCain -- the Republican candidate for president just a short 6 months ago who got more than 44 million votes in the election -- is of little help on this issue, having campaigned himself against enhanced interrogation and for the closing of Guantanamo. So he's been -- by necessity and by temperament -- silent in this debate. But where are the others? Are there any conservatives who have a future (as opposed to a past) in politics willing and able to stand up and say to the nation what it already suspects? That Obama's inexperience and desire to "make everyone happy" is putting us at risk? That his world view -- and thus his emerging foreign policy -- is dangerously naive?

You have to give Obama credit -- he certainly likes to talk as if he is reasoned and balanced in his approach, that he has command of the vital issues that face us as a nation. He is nothing if not outwardly confident. But this president doesn't deal well with specifics and facts. He's long relied on soaring rhetoric that sounds great but says nothing. Like many liberals, he makes statements of opinion as if they are fact, saying it in such a way that it seems beyond dispute -- but offering no evidence to back it up. As the WSJ recounts in its lead editorial today: The President went out of his way to insist that its existence "likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained," albeit without offering any evidence, and that it "has weakened American security," again based only on assertion. What is a plain fact is that in the seven-plus years that Gitmo has been in operation the American homeland has not been attacked.

It is also a plain fact -- and one the President acknowledged -- that many of the detainees previously released, often under intense pressure from Mr. Obama's anti-antiterror allies, have returned to careers as Taliban commanders and al Qaeda "emirs." The New York Times reported yesterday on an undisclosed Pentagon report that no fewer than one in seven detainees released from Gitmo have returned to jihad.

Mr. Obama called all of this a "mess" that he had inherited, but in truth the mess is of his own haphazard design. He's the one who announced the end of Guantanamo without any plan for what to do with, or where to put, KSM and other killers. Now he's found that his erstwhile allies in Congress and Europe want nothing to do with them. Tell us again why Gitmo should be closed?

President Obama is making things up out of whole cloth and peddling them as fact; he is tremendously vulnerable on these issues, because what he says doesn't pass the simple smell test. Why is it Dick Cheney -- a man whose career is over -- shooting the arrows at the president and his party over this?

Is this really the best we can do?