The Inquiring Manatee

What's Good for the Country is Good for General Motors

      

Awwww. The poor little stock market doesn't like the Obama administration dumping Rick Wagoner at GM. It's afraid the big, bad government is being too tough on auto executives.
  But it was a good move. Wagoner had to go if the increasingly reluctant taxpayers are to be convinced to put more bailout money into GM. Wagoner, never much of a convinced reformer, symbolized the foot-dragging U.S. auto industry. Besides, his name sounded too much like Chrysler's big, clunky old Jeep Wagoneer, even though he wasn't really a "car guy" at all; he was a finance guy.
   Unfortunately, so is Wagoner's successor as CEO, president and chief operating officer Fritz Henderson. How much faith can we have in this clone? At least he has a first name that gives him some Daimler Benz cachet. The Germans, who were smart enough to run away from downscale Chrysler, know what they're doing when it comes to running car companies. Which is more than I can say for the Italians. I'm not optimistic about Fiat being the answer for Chrysler.
    Fix it again, Timmy.
    Bankruptcy may be Geithner's best fix. Bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler looks not only inevitable but desirable. The court can get them out from under the absurdly high expenses for retiree health care that the UAW negotiated over decades, badly handicapping the carmakers against the pared-down competition from countries whose governments subsidize health care for all. The retired GM and Chrysler workers can jolly well go on Medicare like the rest of us.
    The bankruptcy court also would preside over a fundamental restructuring that would cut the number of makes and models for GM. The battered company has been saying it wants to concentrate on Chevy, Buick and Cadillac, cutting off Pontiac and Saturn. Bad choices that the court shouldn't approve. Make 'em dump Buick, the car for fat diabetics (no matter what sellout Tiger Woods says) and keep Pontiac and Saturn, putting new money into these promising marques.
    Here's another restructuring suggestion: Make GM change its name to something less generic, something friendlier. General Motors is not a loveable name that inspires loyalty; it's as, well, corporate as United States Steel or the New York Yankees. How about Googlemobile? Botswana? Laurene?
    But, hey, how about that Ford? The conventional wisdom is that Ford, not asking for taxpayer help, is not in trouble. That's false. Ford is benefiting only from a $23 billion line of credit it took out a year ago, before industry prospects withered. Unless sales pick up soon, Ford will be bellying up to the public trough like its Big 3 counterparts.
    After all, where is the intelligence behind asking an $8,000 price premium for the admittedly excellent new Ford Fusion hybrid? Who is going to pay that much for 41 city mpg? How much smarter, then, is Ford than GM or Chrysler? Look how they screwed up the latest Thunderbird.
  

How Godly to Blow Up a Mosque Full of People

    

In the latest move by the Allah-fearing terrorists of northwest Pakistan, they have sent a suicide bomber to blow himself up in a mosque crowded with hundreds of Friday worshipers, killing 48 innocent Muslims and wounding many others. The mosque was obliterated.
     OK, plotters. Call yourself killers. Call yourself eye-for-an-eye revanchists, if you must. But don't call yourself Muslims. You can't even call yourself religious.
      Is there any religion on Earth that sanctions blowing up a house of God full of worshipers?
      And these people have the nerve to denounce Zionists? 
      This latest egregious incident is yet more proof that the last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism. It is religion, when used as a cover for nothing more than politics.

A Plug for "No. 1 Ladies Detective Service" on HBO

  

I haven't seen a preview, but based on a favorable Los Angeles Times review my wife Irma and I are going to try to tune in (or at least tape, while we watch "Desperate Housewives") HBO's "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Service" at 8 p.m., or repeated at 10 p.m., Sunday night. The adventures of Precious Ramotswe and her allies in a simple village in Botswana have made for great books, and it appears that HBO spared no expense in getting the casting and atmosphere right for a TV production. They even hired the expert British cinematographer who shot "Atonement."
   Try not to miss it.

Legalize Cocaine, Heroin, Grass, Everything

   

If America is serious about destroying the out-of-control drug cartels -- saving embattled Mexico, stabilizing Colombia and cutting the poppy-financed Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan off at the knees -- there is no alternative to the admittedly radical and politically difficult step of legalizing all "controlled substances," from pot to hash to psilocybin to amphetamines to methedrine to magic mushrooms to LSD to coke to crack.
    Yes, the time has come to turn narcotic drugs over to Big Pharma. The price of a high will come down for users, yet the drugmakers still will earn such big profits that they'll be able to cut the prices of prescription drugs while amassing billions of dollars for research on future miracle cures. Stock prices of Pfizer, Merck, Hoffmann-Laroche and other drugmakers will soar.
     The outrageously brutal, beheading-crazed, "soupmaking" criminals and their dumb-as-dirt hitmen, together with the assault weapon dealers in this country who enable the cartels to outgun the few governments that they haven't yet corrupted, will have to find new games as their markets dry up overnight.
     Oh, I know what the social conservatives will say: Widely available narcotics are "bad for society," encouraging people to get high rather than work productively. That's true in principle, but let's look at the people who buy illegal drugs now and who would be buying the legalized drugs at lower prices and in safety.
     The drug users are overwhelmingly the lowest strata in society -- the same double-digit-IQ morons who buy cigarettes and chewing tobacco. At best, they are marginally productive lowlifes looking for their next tattoo as well as their next fix. They don't work worth a damn as it is (as the products of Detroit assembly lines indicate), so as a society we'd be no worse off. They're going to get their drugs no matter what. They need their drugs to get high all the time, blotting out their depression at having been shortchanged on brains. At least this way, with drugs legalized, the taxes they'd pay on their stupefying narcotics would support their medical care -- and would help care for millions of other sick people.
     Are you listening, Felipe Calderon, Alvaro Uribe, Barack Obama and even Hamid Karzai? You guys should exercise your leadership abilities and start unifying your societies behind the only real answer -- total legalization. It's not the perfect solution -- nothing is ever perfect in human endeavor -- but it's inevitable, timely and demonstrably necessary.
    
    

Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame?

 Here's a commendation for the Rev. John I. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, for refusing to bow -- so far -- to mounting and near-hysterical pressure from anti-abortion Catholics to uninvite the pro-choice President Obama to deliver a commencement address at the South Bend, Ind., school on May 17.

   The local bishop says he won't attend. The Cardinal Newman Society, a national Catholic college group, says that more than 60,000 people have signed its online petition to stop the "scandal" at Notre Dame. The Pro-Life Action League is urging protests to Jenkins, demanding that he disinvite Obama. Social conservative student groups on campus are up in arms. Some of the Fighting Irish are wakening the echoes in fighting the nation's first African-American president, annoyed that he reversed the outrageously anti-progressive Bush administration restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

   The president is scheduled to speak at Notre Dame, Arizona State University and the U.S. Naval Academy in commencement season.

    Jenkins is admirably sticking to his guns. He told the campus newspaper that Obama is not being honored for his stands on abortion or embryonic stem cell research, but for his leadership in a difficult time. "You cannot change the world if you shun the people you want to persuade," he said. Jenkins issued a statement that Obama is "an inspiring leader" who is addressing the economy, two wars, health care, immigration and education "with intelligence, courage and honesty."

    Notre Dame's community and supporters should be proud that Obama is reaching out to American Catholics and honoring with his presence a university that for too long has been regarded only as a football school. Obama's address brings new prestige to Notre Dame, and everyone on campus should be open-minded about their differences with him.

   

Happy Days Are Here Again

   

At last, Wall Street is happy with the Obama administration's plans to goose bank lending and get the slumping economy back on track. The market is up today, by more than 300 points so far.
    It actually makes me a bit suspicious when Wall Street likes anything the administration does. Makes it sound like a giveaway with not enough regulation. In this case, the taxpayers will be paying for 93% of the hard-to-value toxic assets it will be taking off banks' balance sheets along with private partners, who in turn will be encouraged with low-interest Treasury loans to take a chance on the mortgage-based securities.
    Now you and I will be partners with hedge funds, who are suddenly supposed to be our friends as they join in this program. Hedge funds, with their wildly overcompensated executives, are largely responsible for the excesses that brought us all to this pass.
    It's a tight, mutually reinforcing little family, the world of "financials" and those, like Tim Geithner, who have allegedly regulated them. They know how to help each other.
    Yes, I'm skeptical about this plan, and I'm not planning to buy any of the toxic assets myself; I have enough of my own already. (They're called municipal bonds.) But let's hope it works.

Obama's Special Olympics Gaffe

   

On Jay Leno's "Tonight" show Thursday, President Obama compared his bowling skills to the Special Olympics. He's spent some time since then apologizing.
    Give the guy a break. To the casual listener, the incongruous connection was funny. I didn't think the joke was so bad. He was accepting the Special Olympics as a recognized part of our lives -- disadvantaged athletes doing their best, but unable to measure up to the scores of the more naturally gifted. Who can't identify with that? Even Tim Shriver, who heads the Special Olympics for the Kennedy and Shriver clans, has accepted the presidential apology.
     Let's also remember that Obama is not a natural humorist, and certainly not in the same league as Leno. He's clever and articulate, and he thinks on his feet, but sometimes a guy like that can be a bit too smart for his own good.
    During the Civil War, everyone was down on Abe Lincoln for always spinning yarns and jokes. History has given him the last laugh. I hope Obama won't shy from attempting more jokes. We can all use a few laughs -- and if the joke fails, we can always laugh at, and with, a president who was trying to lighten the national mood.

The Sad Case of Natasha Richardson

   

A woman takes a fall during a ski lesson on the beginner slope at Mont Tremblant -- and ends up brain-dead?
   How awful and bizarre is that?
   One news report noted that poor Natasha Richardson was "not wearing a helmet."Well, of course she was not wearing a helmet. She wasn't a downhill racer. She was a celebrity actress taking a beginner ski lesson.
    This horrifying story offers one more lesson that snow and ice are treacherous and, so easily, potentially deadly. My ex-boss, Washington Post Co. owner Katharine (Kay) Graham, died from a slip on ice.
     I once took a pretty low-speed fall on ice while doing a winter run in Washington's Rock Creek Park. My shoulder, nearly broken, hurt for two years. Another slip while walking on Connecticut Avenue nearly broke my arm. Ice is bad news. You hit the ground amazingly fast and amazingly hard, and it's a matter of luck where you happen to land.
     I met Natasha Richardson once, briefly. I was interviewing her late father, the British film director Tony Richardson, at a house he owned or was renting in the Hollywood Hills, in the late '80s or early '90s. He was making a comeback with some film or other. As I was saying goodbye at his door and heading for my car, Natasha Richardson arrived for a visit and we spoke. She seemed down-to-earth as well as quite pretty and smart.
     I am so sympathetic to her husband, Liam Neeson, and their two young children.
     This is one more bad thing in a generally bad time.

Throwing Bonus AIGs at the Malfeasors

   

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was being too kind to the AIG bonus-winners when he suggested in an Iowa radio interview Monday that they follow the Japanese model by bowing deeply, apologizing humbly and then either resigning or committing suicide.
    (The Japanese, by the way, describe the act as hara-kiri, not "harry-carry," as the American news media frequently mispronounce it. The ritual act of running a sword across one's midsection also is known as seppuku.)
    Why ask them to commit suicide? Why not take matters into our own hands by boiling these incompetent, greedy morons in oil? Or feeding them to the sharks off Isla Morada? Or parachuting them into the tribal areas of Pakistan?
    In truth, nothing is too bad for these AIG financial executives who have earned bonuses -- bonuses! -- of up to $1 million for running their huge company into the sewer, and taking the world's econony with it.
    No matter whether the taxpayers ever get the $165 million back -- and I favor a 91% special excise tax to be passed by Congress aimed squarely at these jerks -- let this become the death knell of the way the financial sector compensated its traders and managers. No more of this outrageous compensation. The people were helplessly angry and increasingly bitter for years as they witnessed these yearly bonuses and these stratospheric CEO salaries and options. Now, as owners of these companies, taxpayers aren't about to put up with a continuation of the status quo.
     These guys should be fired and perhaps prosecuted, certainly not rewarded.
     Enough.

Three Words of Advice for Dick Cheney

   

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is making a new career out of demanding that President Obama follow all of the Bush-Cheney administration's "war on terror" policies, saying that reverting to a law-enforcement approach from the post-9/11 "war on terror" militarism and torture is sure to engender new Al Qaeda attacks on U.S. soil.
    Is anyone even listening to this discredited man anymore? Secretive, power-grasping and arrogant, the man who instigated the illegal campaign to discredit Joe Wilson by striking at his wife, Valerie Plame, Cheney has been written off by a world delighted to be rid of him and his illiterate front man, George W. Bush.
    Bush and Cheney had eight long, miserable years to impose their policies -- from science-mocking religiosity to the needless war in Iraq to the regulatory lapses that led directly to the current recession. The American people, at long last, finally rejected these policies in toto last November.
    Yet Cheney is still chattering away. He just didn't get the message.
    It's time for a sick-and-tired world to give Cheney the same advice he so gracelessly gave Vermont's Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy on the floor of the Senate:
    Go fuck yourself.