There’s a lot to like about how President Obama is running his administration. I watched today as General Motors did the almost unthinkable not too long ago, but what was today widely expected, and declared bankruptcy. General Motors is a victim of their own short sightedness and the Bush administration’s horrific lack of governing skills – from top to bottom. It is interesting watching the contrast between how Obama’s administration is dealing with the “bailout” and how Bush’s did. As is all too painful to remember George W Bush was almost invisible in the last days of his Presidency as the country was falling apart all around us. His approach to “bailouts” was to hand money over to large corporations and hope that they would do something responsible with the money. Of course, these were the same corporations who had squandered trillions in a show of incredible greed and then paid themselves lush bonuses because they were all too important to “let go.”

Well, President Obama fired the CEO of General Motors, and when all is said and done with their restructuring, hopefully we will have an auto maker which will build cars that the American people can afford to buy and afford to drive – en masse. The plan, as I read it, was to create a company that can make money with a sales volume of somewhere approaching 60% of what it would take to make the pre-bankruptcy General Motors profitable. A leaner and hopefully “greener” corporation. The United Auto Workers were compelled to take serious cutbacks to make this plan workable and my hope is that the company will come out of bankruptcy stronger and employing as many American workers as possible. And the exciting part of this, I am surmizing, are the empty factories they are closing and the eager workforce which will not be a part of the “new” General Motors. I think that is where President Obama will make his mark – one way or the other – as history looks back on this troubled time.

I listened to Michael Moore on TV tonight making some superb suggestions of what “might be” regarding this restructuring. He harkened back to World War II days when, under FDR, many of the manufacturing facilities of the Detroit auto makers were “switched” to other needs – from airplane engines to I can’t remember what else – but the changeover was done in record time. He also pointed out the rationale behind using government money that might be going to retrain the laid off workers to start up some of these factories producing products that would enhance the future of this nation as we try to pull ourselves out of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and at the same time try to reduce our need for OIL! For example, these factories could be making buses and light rail trains, wind turbines, and I’m sure the list would exceed the dollars necessary to make the transition from cars and trucks that are no longer practical in the U.S. to products that will free us from our dependence on foriegn oil. If we can throw over a trillion dollars at the Wall Street banks, the same banks which helped to create this crisis – we can come up with the money necessary to change the direction of our nation to one that depends less and less on imported oil.

I was talking to a friend of mine who has been working in a steel plant for approaching 20 years and is in danger of being jobless. He’s an engineer and he’s brilliant – you know, one of those guys you get around who seem to be able to build and or fix ANYTHING (he’s also a Republican – what I call the good Republicans who are being left “on the island,” so to speak, by the present Republican party). There are more and more people like my friend looking for work – these are extremely talented and creative individuals. During our conversation he commented on the need to build an electric grid to move the electricity that can be harnessed through wind generators in the Columbia gorge (ie T Boone Pickens). I have read where bringing our “infrastructure” up to code would take approximately 2.2 trillion dollars. Changing the way we move ourselves and the products we use around would take a substantial investment, but in the long run we would FINALLY be doing something sensible for our children and grandchildren – and this change would create MILLIONS of good paying jobs. For the past 25 years we have not only been borrowing as much money as we can as a nation we’ve been mortgaging the future of our children on our greedy backs by using all the good roads, bridges, and buildings built by our grandparents and not repairing or replacing them as needed. WE NOW HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE ALL THAT!

I found it very interesting and encouraging that the Stock Market went up over 3% on the day General Motors declared bankruptcy. Considering some people have estimated as many as 3 million jobs are on the line in saving GM, this – to me – showed how shrewed and well thought out this process has been by the Obamal administration. Everyone seems to see the potential benefit from doing this “right” – well, everyone except …….. you guessed it – THE REPUBLICANS. As I’ve stated over and over on this site – from the first day President Obama was elected, let alone his first official day in office, the Republicans have not been “on board” and are not going to be “on board” with ANYTHING OBAMA DOES. They have taken the huge gamble which almost seems to include them hoping for something bad to happen that they are going to fight everything – NO MATTER WHAT. The de-facto leader of the party – Rush Limbaugh (I can’t believe I’m even writing this – but it’s true) – has openly on numerous occasions (that I’ve heard with my own ears) said: “I hope Obama fails.” There are some exciting things happening, and it would be really nice to be having some positive input from the “Right” – somewhere besides the White House – but these Republicans are going to either destroy their own party or cheer for the destruction of our nation. It seems the damage done during the Bush years wasn’t enough, they want to take us totally into the “tank.”

What is curious about their position is they have Dick Cheney going around defending all the blunders of the Bush administration as if they “kept us safe.” Today, I heard him blame the 9/11 attacks on Richard Clarke who was one of the people from the Clinton administration urging those in the Bush administration to take Osama Bin Laden seriously. This is the Dick Cheney who, along with Condoleeza Rice, ignored one memo after another from the intelligence community about an imminent attack. He helped create a defense department under Donald Rumsfeld (Rumsfeld was very certainly “Cheney’s man”) that was at odds with the CIA and the National Security agency creating a void where there should have been close intercommunication which would have uncovered the 9/11 attacks well before the planes ever got off of the ground. Dick Cheney is busy trying to rewrite history in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary of virtually everything he says. IT WON’T WORK IN THE LONG TERM, and his only hope in the short term is that we have a television network (Fox “news”) which is no more than an arm of the right wing of the Republican party. The people on this network are unbelievable (and despicable) to me. I can’t imagine anyone who would call themselves a “journalist” and having any integrity at all, being an extension of a political party. In my mind, some of these guys border on traitors (they talk about sedition, they go along with the right wing rhetoric – no questions asked, and they even participate in the spurilous hate machine attacking the President of the United States).

What is really ironic to me concerning the recent debate has been the concerted effort of the right wing (in concert with Fox) to label the new Supreme Court nominee as a racist. OK, if you can’t see the irony in Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and these others who thought “Barack the Majic Negro” was a funny takeoff of an old song calling anyone a racist, then I would feel safe in saying that you’ve not been paying much attention to American politics of the past few years (probably 20+ years would be more appropriate). These guys will say anything at anytime without the slightest worry regarding the truthfulness of their remarks. That’s because they are backed by a (fortunately shrinking) base of people who question nothing that comes from their mouths. I know this because I have friends who I can’t even talk to about politics anymore because they spew the identical garbage – as if it came out of Rush’s mouth himself – and will defend it to the “death” even if you provide proof that they’ve been listening to lies. For some reason there’s a significant number of Americans who are going to believe what these right wing liars spew out no matter what. The really scary part of all this is that it appears to me that even the Democrats are quaking in their boots about taking these Republicans on – STRAIGHT UP!

I mean, if the only thing that’s going to prevent us, as a nation, from coming out of this financial crisis stronger and FINALLY headed in a direction which will “divorce” us from the Saudi Oil barons and the Chinese bankers is the Republican naysayers – WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? Even Obama seems to feel a need to placate these thugs. There are more and more sensible leaders coming out each day encouraging the Democrats to move forward without a single Republican vote (you got it – SCREW EM!), and more importantly, to “look backward” and investigate the Bush administration’s lawbreaking – prosecuting where appropriate – we’re all just waiting for the Democratic party – AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION – to get “on board.” Despite all the good Obama is doing, should he remain stubborn about “looking backward” I will never vote for him again. I am totally encouraged by much of what he’s proposing, but I just don’t “get” the lack of will in enforcing our laws and constitution. To me, looking the other way is not an option. The difference in dealing with the bailout between the Bush administration (no strings attached) and the Obama administration (restructuring GM) is stark – in contrast to how both administrations seem to think that high government officials are above the law. Investigating the Bush administration might be all it takes to shut these Republicans up. The national discourse can be focused on all the exciting opportunities in front of us once Dick Cheney and his co-conspirators are in jail!